Wednesday, May 14, 2008

ERrrr...

We took our first trip to the ER with Nehemiah last night. It was bizarre--the last time I was there was when I checked in to go up to the birthing center.

Before you get too worried, all is well.

He fell from standing earlier in the day and whacked the back of his head pretty hard. We weren't too concerned until later that evening when we were out with a group of friends for pizza. We were just about to order, and Nehemiah started throwing up. Then we remembered the head shot.

We called our insurance's ask a nurse line, and they suggested we take him in--just to rule anything major out, because it is difficult to tell sometimes with a pre-walker/talker. :) So we went.

Diagnosis: head injury (concussion was mentioned by a nurse). Prognosis: watch him over the next few days, but he looks really good, so most likely everything is fine. They didn't want to give him a CT-Scan unless they had doubts, because pumping radiation into developing brains is not a fabulous idea when it isn't necessary.

Fine by me.

We were asked a few questions by the doctor about Nehemiah's vaccination history. More accurately, the lack thereof. The doctor was curious, he said. Curious, but not pushy, which I appreciated.

We ran to Walmart since we were in the city anyway. That way we could avoid the planned trip for today, in case Nehemiah was still feeling rotten. All of this resulted in a bunch of driving in the late afternoon and evening hours. I'm not sure if that is what did it, or if it was the feeling yucky, but he was up alot last night. I was up with him at 12, 2, (maybe 3--I'm a little hazy this morning), 4, and 6, and Ben got him up at 7:30 this morning. Whew! Ben let me sleep until 9 or so and did the morning routine, which I was grateful for, and now Nehemiah is down for his morning nap. Hooray!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I was going to call you today to see how the little guy was doing - and I'm glad to read that everything's okay. :) We were thinking of you guys last night!

Zoe said...

I'm so glad to hear that he's okay. First trip to the ER--- probably not your favorite of the many firsts you're experiencing.

Barefoot Lutheran said...

I keep forgetting to ask you - why no vaccinations?

-Katie

felicitouschick said...

After having a few little ones on the autism spectrum in my classroom, I feel pretty strongly that if there is anything at all that I can do to prevent the development of said disorder, I'll try it. There is a debate raging on about some of the chemical additives in vaccines used to keep them chemically stable(primarily thimerasol, mercury (though not as much anymore), and formaldahyde)and if they have too great an impact on some infants' immune systems and brains. It would only be for some children, but it does seem that there may be a correlation.

I have heard suggestions for a vaccine readiness test to be developed, and that sounds good to me. I'd be much more willing to jump in (because I do think vaccines are good for most of the population). I just don't think the burden of proof (or is it disproof?) has been established by the medical community that they are good for each child at such a young age.

Here's a link to a story Katie Couric did a few days ago:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/05/12/cbsnews_investigates/main4086809.shtml?source=search_story

On top of it all, because I do second guess this decision at times, Nehemiah has had a persistent yeast infection since he was 6 weeks old, and children with autism have some common themes--one of which is a high yeast threshold in their bodies--so I'm a little extra cautious.

Currently we are not vaccinating him. We may pursue a delayed schedule or selective vaccination at some point, but we haven't decided that just yet.

So that's pretty much what I told the doctor. And I think at that point he knew that I wasn't neglecting Nehemiah's health care, but had some concerns that haven't been settled yet.