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Emergency room, SAGA. [1]
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Date: 2025-07-25
So, now that I’m over my panic, let me tell you about the emergency room saga
It started like any other day, I posted an entry, engaged with comments and delved into work. Nate woke up and told me he had a headache, I gave him some acetaminophen, and he laid down. A couple hours later he told me his head was spinning (he gets that sometimes), then a few minutes later, he said he wanted to throw up, gave him some anti nausea med, it did not work, he was throwing up within 20 minutes.
And it did not stop, after about 2 hours of this, I decided to take him to the emergency room, because he was getting worse on all front, his face was even puffy. Taking a sick child anywhere as they are throwing up is not recommended by taxi drivers, we armed ourselves with a bag and a wet towel and went.
Now my Spanish isn’t great, so there I was trying to explain head spinning to a nurse who must have thought I was crazy as I kept spinning around in the middle of the room, since pointing to my head and spinning my finger had not been correctly translated. Nate of course chose that moment to start throwing up again so they rushed us into a room.
When Nate was done it was back to bad Spanish and hand gestures, finally we made some headway and they hooked Nate up to a line, always a quest for finding a vein, since the kid chose to inherit my tiny thin veins, so after digging around a bit, they finally got it in and injected the medicine! Now I don’t know why the medicine for the head went into the IV, but the one for the nausea had to be delivered directly into the buttock of my son. He was not happy!
There was another quest for a separate vein to draw some fine red blood, and then we were left alone in our little cubicle… Nate started dozing in and out of some semblance of sleep, couldn’t lay down “my head spins too much when I do mom” so I had to stand guard next to the tiny bed as he kept tilting not towards the convenient wall but the empty space on the other side.
At one point I noticed the drip drip of the IV had stopped, so I hunted a nurse and after conversing in gestures again she came to check out the IV and explained to me that Nate had to keep the arm straight at all times because when he bent his arm his tiny veins closed up. (I can understand Spanish wayyyyyyyyy better than utter it). So I had Nate hang his arm down the side of the bed! Success the drip picked up speed.
After a couple of hours where I was bored out of my skull so started taking pictures and chatting up other parents introducing them to the wonderful word of gesture language, the nurse came back with the results of the blood tests, all within range she said, splendid I gestured back! Then she informed me that he had to drink some Manzana juice (apple) and if after 10 minutes he didn’t throw up we could leave! Hoorah!
Young Nate valiantly drank about 10 sips of warm apple juice and we set a timer. As we were waiting a toddler in the next cubicle was getting the famed butt shot (there were lots of kids with the same symptoms) the mother smashed her kids face on the pillow while a man held his legs the nurse had a hand firmly on his back and they shot him up, when the mother let the kid up he had a nose bleed, she seemed surprised by this after she had practically suffocated the child.
Now I know kids don’t like shots, but frankly if you didn’t lie to them that “it won’t hurt” or “no you’re not going to get a shot” there would be way less drama.
Anyways the timer went off, I went back hunting the nurse, it took them an additional 30 minutes to come and take the IV out and we departed back to our abode. But the adventure was not completely done. After we got home, Nate went to the bathroom to pee or poo and I heard “I Threw up!” so I rushed in, did an immaculate if faulty impression of a physical comic, slid and fell! The boy had thown up on the floor!
I am now the proud owner of a bruised hand, knee and toe. I cleaned up the room, the boy, myself, and he looked at me and said “I’m feeling better though!” he slid into bed and into sleep almost simultaneously! I retreated to my bedroom with a cup of coffee and realized I had not eaten all day, but the thought of food made me want to pull a Nate so I skipped food.
So I sat down, read some social media, in between frequent trips to the boy’s room to check on him, he’s still sleeping so all is good for now.
#TheAmericanHaitianPoet #Woke #SocialPoetry
Paypal.me/murielvieux (small donations go a long way in Haiti)
Muriel Vieux – July 25th, 2025 – ©All rights reserved
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