Side Trip

We interrupt the Brenna family tour of Singapore to bring you "Ethan's emergency room adventure." Yesterday (my birthday, by the way), Ethan started complaining of stomach pain. At first, I thought it was just a ploy to get out of going to soccer practice, because it seemed fine when he was there. Afterwards though, he started complaining again and looking peaked. He refused any dinner (and it was Subway sandwiches - this kid can put away a 6" by himself!) and wanted to go to bed at 7.

At about 10 p.m., Ethan came wimpering out of his bedroom. We took his temperature, and he had a slight fever. Now, this is where my medical upbringing and Erik's collide. My dad worked in a hospital (read "great insurance") when I grew up, so we felt the freedom to treat anything with a trip to the ER. Erik's family was more along the lines of "if the towel can't hold any more blood, maybe it's time to take you in." So Erik was inclined to let Ethan go back to sleep and wait it out, while I was reaching for my keys. I won, so my mom came with me to a close children's hospital emergency room.

We had to wait about an hour to see a doctor. She determined that he was simply quite constipated, which is what we thought (though the fever threw us off, especially as it had risen by the time we got there). So our boy got to experience his first, and hopefully last, enema. It went to work within a minute. Ethan and I were in hysterics in the bathroom because he kept trying to see what was coming out and every time he bent over, the toilet automatically flushed and made him jump about 3 feet.

With a pain free boy, we tried to leave by following some people through a door to the lifts. If we had used our powers of observation, we might have noticed the "staff only" sign on the door. We got to the basement car park and were unable to exit any of the doors. We went up and down several times, looking for alternative exits or signs of life, but found neither. We finally got someone's attention through the original door we entered, and he went in search of a staff. Meanwhile, a nurse came up the elevator. "We're trapped!" we cried to her, and she laughed and let us out. So that was a good way to spend 20 minutes at midnight when we were already beat.

Today we're pushing the fiber on Ethan. He's never had this problem before, but I'll admit we haven't been eating very well since we've been out and about every day with the family. We're just thankful it was nothing serious.