Never a dull moment with our family and the medical world

Today was Elaine's well-child appointment to complete her physical to be able to register for kindergarten. They did a vision test and a hearing test and measured her and weighed her, all was perfect and normal. The doctor looked in her ears, throat, and nose, she felt her glands and belly for any abnormalities and all was perfect again. Starting to feel like an easy appointment, well then came time for vaccinations and of course no child likes to have shots of any kind. She needed four shots to be caught up on boosters and ready for kindergarten. That meant two in each arm and of course she cried. I told her what my mom used to tell me, "you can say ow as many times as you want but please don't scream" she understood it would hurt but only for a minute and then it would be better. She was so brave, she said ow ow ow ow several times for each shot, and a few tears escaped, but all in all, she was strong. I didn't have a copy of her immunization card verifying all of her immunizations as a baby, it had been lost in one of our many moves, i know where Katie and Maggie's are, but somehow Elaine's had dissappeared. They were going to need a copy of it so i would have to go across town to the office where she'd had them done as an infant, then drive back so that Kaiser could enter them into their system. I figured i'd go ahead and take Elaine to get the blood work needed to finish her physical for registration and then head off to the office across town to collect her records. We arrived at the lab at the Kaiser Hospital and had quite an extended wait, i've never seen that place so full! Every chair in the waiting area was taken, and a few were also standing. We had to wait around half an hour to be taken back so i asked if we could do the urine sample while we waited. That in and of it's self was a problem because apparently Elaine has issues with peeing in a cup. They wanted a mid-stream sample which meant she had to pee into the potty first then pee into the cup, once she starting peeing in the potty i told her to stop so i could catch the rest in the cup and she did, but then she couldn't make the rest come out for the life of her! It was crazy, we sat there for 10 minutes at least, i tried distracting her by singing and doing some relaxing breathing to get her to relax her peeing muscles, but the rest of that pee wouldn't budge. Ok so i gave up and we asked for another cup to try again later. Then we finally got called back to get her blood drawn and i figured this was the easy part, get it done and go. I told her again that it might hurt, but it wouldn't hurt as bad as the shot and it would be over quick if she sat really still. She agreed but was already looking worried when the lady put on the tourniquette (i'm sure i spelled that wrong) i tried to get Elaine to look away but her eyes were glued on the needle headed her way. The woman held down Elaine's arm and in the exact moment she poked Elaine flinched and the poor woman lost the vein. Elaine was already saying ow ow ow ow ow and crying, and the woman dug around with the needle searching for the lost vein. I could see Elaine was getting more and more upset and this woman kept going. I finally yelled at her to pull the needle out but it was too late, Elaine went unconscious. She slumped over in my lap and i freaked out. It reminded me of when Katie stopped breathing as a 5 week old infant. This is now the second of my children to stop breathing in my arms. It is a scary thing to have happen. The woman who had been trying to draw blood called a "code 2" and the whole hospital heard it over the intercom system. 2 doctors, 3 nurses, a security guard and several other medical people showed up nearly instantaneously. They looked around at the overflowing lab full of people and tried to figure out which old person had passed out. There were old people in wheel chairs, and people on oxygen, but it took them a minute to realize it wasn't any of the usual people, it was my poor little five year old who was unconscious, passed out in my arms. One man started fanning her, another rubbed her and called her name, another was taking notes, while still another was taking her pulse. There was even one man who's job it was to calm me down because more than anything i was crying and calling her name trying to get her to wake up! She finally came to and was confused by all the people standing around her. One person who was trying to make her feel better said " it's all done sweetie, it's ok" but it wasn't! They still hadn't gotten the blood! Her color was quite white so they gave her some juice and had her walk around a little bit before they tried again. When they tried again all of the doctors and nurses and staff were trying to get her attention away from the needle and keep her breathing, she was crying and very upset, but she kept breathing and they got the blood sample. So we were finally done but they wouldn't let us leave until they'd monitored her for a little while. They kept checking her blood pressure and her heart rate and talking to her to make sure she wasn't confused at all. She was finally normalling out and they allowed us to leave. As we walked out i saw Elaine's face as she soaked in the stares of the every person in the waiting room. She started to cry a little more, out of embarassment more than anything else. I felt so sad for her, for what she was having to go through, and all just so she could register for kindergarten. We had to go across town after that to get her immunization record from the other medical office and then drive back across town to bring it back, somewhere in the middle we had mcDonald's for lunch, she started to feel better after she got to run around in their play area and when we headed back to Kaiser to bring in her immunization record i decided to have her try to pee again. This time after a little trickery i was able to get her to pee in the cup. i initially put it under her and she again said she just couldn't do it, so i took it out and said "it's ok just go potty, no cup" a few minutes later she relaxed enough to pee and i was able to quickly get the cup under her and catch it, midstream and everything! So we had to go back to the lab to turn in the urine sample. When we drove up Elaine asked if she could wait in the car, she had tears in her eyes as she said she didn't want to go in there again. I fully understood and while i would normally never leave any of my children unattended in the car, i didn't want to traumatize her anymore than she already had been. I left her and ran in to turn in the specimen. Finally after returning to the car i announced we were going to go home. This day started out at the doctors office at 8:30am, but we didnt' arrive home until 2pm! What a day, we never seem to have a dull moment, especially when it comes to the medical aspect of life. But it's done, and i can now register Elaine for Kindergarten on March 2nd!