Seeking the formula for parenting

Blogger Content: September 2006 - April 2010

Flexible Links

My Blogging Inspiration
Campaign for Unshaved Snatch (CUSS) & Other Rants

Flexible Affiliations


Parent Bloggers Network
- Crazy/Hip Blog-Mamas+
(Random Site)
A Member of Bust's Girl Wide Web
Parenting Blogs - Blog Top Sites
blog search directory
Search For Blogs, Submit Blogs, The Ultimate Blog Directory

Tuesday, May 05, 2009

Ticked Off by the ER

This morning started off fine. Well, maybe that's a bit of an overstatement. I came home from the gym to find our older son (OS) already in a time out. Then I had the pleasure of giving him two more time outs over the duration during which he got dressed and ate breakfast. As he was finishing breakfast, I looked at him to see if he had any food on his face. That's when I noticed a dot moving quickly towards his right eye. I tried to brush it away. It stopped moving. It also became firmly lodged right under OS's lower eyelashes. As much as I wanted to believe it was a poppy seed from when we had poppy seed bagels about three years ago, I knew it was a tick.

I called the Big Giraffe over and the two of us tried to remove it. However, it was so close to his eye and that skin is just so delicate that we were scared to mess with it too much. I decided to wait and call the pediatrician. After about an hour, the pediatrician's office opened, and I talked to the triage nurse. When she first heard that it was a tick, she told me I could bring him in to the office. However, when I told her where it was located, she told me that she needed to talk with OS's doctor and would call me back. About 5 minutes later she did and told me that I had won an all expense paid visit to the ER...well all expenses other than the co-payment The doctor was nervous about the location and size of the tick. If OS started to squirm, she could hurt his eye. It was better to take him to the ER were he could be sedated if necessary. I almost asked if they could sedate me as well.

Fortunately a friend of mine responded to the status update I put on Facebook while waiting for the return call, and had offered to watch my younger son (YS). We dropped YS off and headed over to the ER. Other than the tick, OS was perfectly healthy and was jumping, stomping and leaping over the different hospital floor tiles. We were told to wait in the waiting room. Nothing like being seated between the toddler who has major GI issues and the teenager wearing a mask. Swine Flu anyone?

Since we had just had our battle with the GI issues last week, we figured we were probably safe, and the teenager seemed completely normal and healthy for a teenager, meaning that he had sulky look on his face which was buried in a book while he ignored his mother. Plus, hopefully all his germs stayed in his mask. Or maybe he was just worried about getting sick from the GI toddler and requested a mask. Either way, our stay in the waiting room was brief. I can't say the same about our time in the exam room.

We had quite a few people stop in to see OS's tick. They were impressed by how small it was, as it was in the nymph stage, and also how close to his eye it was located. It apparently broke the record for smallest dog tick ever seen in that ER. Many doctors made numerous attempts to remove the tick. Finally we came down to the last attempt before sedation. It was bribe city over there. I promised to take OS to the hospital gift shop and wherever he wanted to if he would just hold still. He chose the hospital cafeteria. Go figure. While one doctor held his arms, I held his legs, and OS tried to hold still, a second doctor was able to remove the tick. Phew!

A stomach virus last week followed by an ear infection, followed by a tick. I felt like there was no good luck for OS. Then I learned of the silver lining. OS's ear infection proved to be a blessing in disguise. He was on Amoxicillin which the doctor told me has been found to prevent Lyme Disease in children. As long as we were there, I asked him to take another look at OS's ear. I hope the medicine is preventing lyme disease, because it was certainly doing nothing for his ear infection. More bad news? Not really. The doctor put him on Augmentin, which is also what he prescribes to treat Lyme Disease in children. Same dosage and everything. Of course, this was also a dog tick and not a deer tick.

Another plus? I was able to convince OS to eat at Friendly's and not at the hospital cafeteria. In fact all I had to do was mention "The Big F," as the Big Giraffe refers to it and the hospital cafeteria was completely forgotten.

ER Doctor's Lesson Delivered: Bathe your child every night and check for ticks particularly in their scalp.

Labels: ,

posted by Alex Elliot @ 6:05 PM   3 comments
3 Comments:

  • At 5/06/2009 8:00 AM, Blogger Whirlwind said…

    Just an FYI, since you mentioned it was moving, ticks need to be attached for over 24 hours to transmit the virus anyway.

     

  • At 5/06/2009 8:46 AM, Blogger Goofball said…

    I don't think I've ever seen a tick in live. I'd freak by one as I have no idea how to handle them correctly.

    And I've been an Augmentin all April to keep my infections tuned down.

     

  • At 5/06/2009 11:18 AM, Blogger Heather said…

    Gah! I'm getting so grossed out by all these tick blog posts I've been reading!

     
Post a Comment
Home
 

My Profile

Name:Alex Elliot
Home:MA, United States
About Me:Professional Mom of two cats, a dog, an ant farm, and oh yeah...two boys: a 6 year old and a 3 year old. Also found in my house is my husband who is known on this blog as The Big Giraffe.
See my complete profile

Flexible Media Appearances

The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet, Fox TV, August 3, 2007

Flexible Feeds

More Flexible Parenting

Grasshopper New Media Parents
Just Cause
Birth Days

Flexible Categories

Previous Posts

Archives

For those of us who didn't get an instruction manual with our babies and for whom parenting hasn't always gone as planned. On a more serious note this blog is about supporting a woman's ability to make her own choices about parenting including the choice, for whatever reason, to bottle feed her babies formula.

Powered by Blogger
© Formula Fed and Flexible Parenting


Creative Commons License
Formula Fed and Flexible Parenting by Alex Elliot is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Template Design based on one produced by isnaini dot com