August 20, 2009: They Know Us By Name...

...at the Emergency Room! We got home from our vacation yesterday, and it was good to be home. We have a lot to accomplish before school starts. I was talking to my mom on the phone as we were getting the boys ready for bed. At one point Cohen was in the middle of our bed, propped up on a pillow and Carter was playing on the floor of our room. I went into Coey’s room to get his jammies, and as I was in there I heard Cohen let out his “in pain” cry. I rushed into the room in time to see John pick Cohen up and clam him down. He was doing the “cry so hard that his face turns red and doesn’t breathe” cry. We had no clue what happened. Carter couldn’t reach him, we didn’t think, and there weren’t any marks on Cohen. We asked Carter if he hurt baby Cohen and he said “yep”. Then we asked, did you poke him in the eye and Carter said “yep.” Testing this a little further, we asked him if he hit Cohen and he said “yep” We were obviously getting nowhere with regards to finding out what actually happened. After about an hour of screaming we got Cohen calmed down and asleep, and then went to bed ourselves. A

At 12:00am I woke up to Cohen screaming bloody murder. I went in and turned off his apnea monitor for fear it would go off with how erratic Cohen was acting. I brought him in to our room to try and calm him down. 2 hours later and still screaming bloody murder, we decided I should taken Cohen into the ER. Our fear was that his bowel had perforated. The symptom we were to look for was sudden onset of uncontrollable crying or discomfort. Bingo! I raced him to the ER in a panic and certain that he would be airlifted to Sacred Heart that night for emergency surgery. I was about in tears, mostly because I couldn’t calm Cohen down and 2 hours of straight screaming can do a number on a mom’s emotions, I could barely choke out what I think was going on with Cohen. I did manage to explain his belly issues to the nurse, and she got us back to a room very quickly. The doctor came in equally as quick and ruled out bowel perforation. Phew! However, Cohen was still screaming. The doc examined his belly and groin for a hernia and made sure none of his arms or legs were dislocated. Then he checked his ear. One ear was clearly infected. (and this being Cohen’s 7th ear infection, and first time he has ever been this upset about it , I was stunned) And in the other ear, his ear drum burst. Bingo. No wonder he was so upset! He was given some pain medicine and a shot of antibiotic for the infection. As soon as we got home , the meds kicked in and he got a good sleep. I am so happy it wasn’t his bowels, but I can’t imagine how painful it is to have ones ear drum burst. Poor little guy!