Phone-y advice.

Did I ever tell you about the first time I got heartburn? It was in the fall of 2004, Dave had just moved to Montreal to start his Masters degree and I was taking a year off school. I had scheduled a trumpet lesson with an old teacher and was very nervous about it. I was so nervous that I was about 15 minutes early (a feat for me, as I'm never early for anything!) As I sat there waiting for the lesson before mine to end I started experiencing this pain in my chest unlike anything I'd ever felt before. It was so bad that I had to get up and leave the building. I thought a walk outside would help and it did...a bit. A few minutes later I returned, felling a little better and ready for the lesson. When I got inside the classroom, my teacher asked me how I was. I jumped right in and explained my agonizing chest pain. My teacher laughed, said it was heartburn and told me to take some antacids. Hmmm. By the time the lesson was done, I'd forgotten that I was ever in pain and continued straight home. That night I went to bed, but before I could nod off, the pain came back. It was excruciating. It was so bad that I started googling 'chest pain as a symptom' to see if anything else fit the bill. What I found surprised me. According to my Google search based on the symptoms I'd typed in I was having heart attack. Being the hypochondriac that I am, I believed it. I grabbed the phone and called Telehealth Ontario. BIG MISTAKE. When the lady asked how she could help I started explaining my symptoms. Pain in my back, neck and shoulders that also radiates down my arm - an aside here, I have TMJ so when I'm stressed I clench my teeth and when I clench my teeth I get really bad headaches, accompanied by back, neck and shoulder pain that radiates down my arm. I may have overstated my symptoms as I wanted the lady on the phone to take my concern seriously. And seriously she did! Within minutes she was telling me to get to a hospital ASAP. And she didn't say it casually either, there was concern in her voice. So I got up, walked out to the doorway where I was greeted by my two roommates having a late-night snack. I explained to them what was going on. They looked at me, looked at each other and said "Go to bed." "What?" I exclaimed, "I can't go to bed, I might be having a heart attack. If I go to bed I could never wake up!" "You're not having a heart attack, you have heartburn. You'll go to bed, wake up and forget it ever happened. Trust me, I get heartburn all the time." After a few minutes of this banter, I realized that maybe I was overreacting and headed to bed. When I got up the next morning, I'd forgotten about the pain I'd been in the night before. I've since had heartburn a couple times and now know not to overreact.

With Daphne, it's a whole different ball game. You might recall a couple weeks ago when I said I would explain why my blog posts have been sparse as of late. Well, it all started with Daphne's very first trip to the ER. About a month ago now Daphne had her second round of vaccines. Like the first round, we expected that after a few hours Daphne would have a fever, so we made sure to keep a close eye on her. As I was getting her ready for bed I noticed that she felt a little warm so I took her temperature. She had a low-grade fever, nothing to be concerned about. I gave her a dose of acetaminophen to prevent the fever from spiking as she slept. About an hour and a half after I put her down she woke up screaming at the top of her lungs. Dave ran in to see what was the matter and discovered that her fever had spiked. I thought it was a bit strange as the acetaminophen should have prevented the fever from spiking. I thought to be on the safe side that I would call the nurses hotline to ask if that was normal.

During the day the city runs what's called the newborn hotline; it has a public health nurse who specializes in newborn care answering calls on a variety of topics. You can use this hotline until your kid's two, then you can call the regular provincial line. When I've called the newborn hotline they've been really good about addressing all my concerns and not overreacting and recommending a trip to the doctor or ER on every call. Instead, they offer practical advice and let you know of symptoms to look out for that may be cause for concern. This is NOT the case with the regular hotline. Like Telehealth Ontario the nurses tend to recommend a trip to the ER for almost all the people that call in. My guess is that it has something to do with liability and the provincial government not wanting to have to deal with legal suits against a service that they've set up to help the public. Unfortunately, lots of babies get sick at night, when the Newborn Hotline isn't in service. This results in worried parents calling the general line and being scared into taking their baby to the ER. This is exactly what happened to Dave and me.

It was so funny, I called and said exactly this to the lady: "So, when I checked my baby's temperature before bed it was about 100.4 (sorry for the fahrenheit, we bought our stupid thermometre in the States and it's too stubborn to switch back and forth from fahrenheit to celsius). I gave her a single dose of Tylenol and put her to bed. When she woke up just now she was scream-crying and had a fever of 102.5. I just wanted to check and see if it was normal for a fever to spike even after administering Tylenol." To this the lady replied with a question about Daphne's pain level. She gave me three options to choose from. Number one was mild pain: when crying, calms down instantly when comforted and is not really fussy at all. Number two was moderate pain: somewhat fussy and takes a little longer to calm down when crying. Number three was severe pain: inconsolable and very fussy. Okay, for those of you who read my blog or have met Daphne I bet you'd say that Daphne seems to be in moderate pain ALL THE TIME!!! The lady's description of moderate pain is Daphne in a nutshell. So naturally when asked and presented with my options I chose option number two. BIG MISTAKE. Not only did the nurse recommend taking her to the ER right away, but she said it with such concern. She made me feel like I'd be the world's worst mom if I didn't have her in the ER by the time she was onto her next call. So, to the ER we went.

When we arrived we were fortunate to choose to park in a spot that was being vacated by a very thoughtful man who gave us his parking stub. Our spot was prepaid for the whole night, which was nice 'cause we were about to spend 4 hours at BC Children's Hospital (which based on the rates for hospital parking equals about a year's worth of college tuition). I didn't really know what to expect when we got there, but I almost had a heart attack when I heard the coughing sounds coming out of the baby girl entering the ER just as we were. I tried really hard to keep Daphne out of harm's way and I started thinking that the guilt of bringing Daphne to this cesspool of disease was much worse than the guilt I'd be feeling had we not bothered to come. Then I started thinking of the guilt I'd feel if something was actually wrong with Daphne and I neglected to seek proper care and decided that coming the the ER was our only option. We waited a few hours in the waiting room. Daphne managed to sleep for about an hour which was nice (I had to baby squat her to sleep, which took me back as I haven't had to do that for months). We watched a lot of babies and toddlers come and go and at about 2 in the morning we were finally seen. The resident doctor we had was very nice. She did a quick assessment and left to get her attending. We gave Daphne a bottle (pictured below) and watching her drink it while wearing that itty bitty hospital gown was the cutest thing I've ever seen (almost cute enough to warrant the 3 hour wait). When the doctor returned they pretty much told us what we knew, that vaccines sometimes cause fevers and that all we could do was give her acetaminophen and wait. Before the doctor left I asked her if the hospital would mind terribly if I took Daphne's gown as a souvenir, to which she replied that "taking that hospital gown will not only beggar this hospital, but it will put an end to socialized healthcare in Canada". So I took the gown.

The moral of the story is this folks: NEVER call a nurses hotline unless you're prepared to donate a few hours of your life to your local hospital. Furthermore, if you have a child, only call the nurses hotline when you have an actual concern and not just a general question, that's what Google's for.

Oh, and to further explain my lack of blog writing as of late, it was this trip to the ER that caused me to lose just the right amount of sleep to weaken my immune system just enough to cause me to catch the worst cold I've EVER had. It's been a month since I got it and I'm still not 100%. Dave got the same evil cold and Daphne, miraculously, didn't get sick at all, go figure!