The Emergency Room Visit

We have a mantra we chant whenever we go anywhere with the Dudes, it goes – “no emergency room visits, no emergency room visits”. We hope that this will somehow reduce the potential for actual visits to the emergency room. But, at midnight, on our second evening on the road we found ourselves in the emergency room.

It started at 11:15pm with “Daddy, my chest hurts”. Exhausted, we had gone to sleep 3 hours earlier and it took a moment for both of us to realize that the Big Dude was standing over our bed in obvious distress.

That afternoon, he had been riding his bike around the campground as happy as could be and now here he was writhing in pain. Over the next 15 minutes his pain escalated as did our concern. So, we packed everyone up and headed into the town of Cherokee N.C. to look for a medical facility. It is a small town so it didn’t take long to find the Hospital. And, even though it was a Saturday night, the emergency room was empty and we were seen immediately.

The nurse took his vital signs; temp. 102.2, O2 sat 91% and heart rate 157BPM. He was now shaking uncontrollably and his nail beds were blue. The Doctor examined him and ordered some tylenol to be administered. Thirty seconds after taking the tylenol and without warning, he “blew chunks” of hot dogs we had had for dinner all over the nurses station, her computer keyboard and the floor notably missing the large trash can at his left knee. We were then escorted to an exam room, while they cleaned up the mess.

His symptoms seem to suggest pneumonia so an X-ray was ordered. In retrospect, he had developed a cough a couple of weeks earlier that was not unusual for him this time of year. For ten weeks every Spring, we treat him for allergies and asthma but he had not complained about feeling badly until now.

The X-ray did not show signs of pneumonia but, the Doctor determined that he did have a lung infection and would need to be treated with antibiotics. To complicate matters, a forest fire was burning in the hills above the Hospital and the smoke in and around the Hospital was enough to make a healthy person choke. The smoke appeared to be drifting toward our campground and the Doctor suggested that it would be wise to move to another part of town.

Breaking camp at 1:30am to find a new campsite was not desirable especially since we chose to be here for several days to rest and relax, so we decided to wait until morning then reassess the situation. Fortunately, the smoke drifted elsewhere and we were spared the inconvenience of moving.

The next day, he was feeling much better and we decided to treat ourselves to lunch in town. During the drive, we were discussing all of things we had learned so far on the first three days of our trip; start your driving days early so that you can find a campsite and not have to spend the night in the Walmart parking lot, always give the Lil’ Dude a puke bag and towel while traveling on mountain roads to decrease clean-up time and don’t assume that your water pump will work on this trip just because it did on the last trip.

Always adding his 2 cents worth, the Lil’ Dude then summed  up the conversation with “always be prepared for things you don’t expect”. This may become our new mantra.