In honor of my visit to see my adorable niece Emma, I figured I'd take a moment to post two of my favorite ridiculous "baby" calls from work. Recently, we've had a rash of children from 6 months to 2 yrs falling off of couches, but my favorite calls are usually from new moms.
3am, call goes out to our unit for "severe respiratory distress" of a 2 month old baby. We arrive, are told by the VERY young mother that the baby is sleeping and has been for an hour. The GRANDmother pipes up, yeah the baby is sleeping but earlier during the day and evening she's been "frothing at the mouth". ....really? So we walk up this perfectly healthy rather cute baby girl, who is thankfully not too cranky for being woken up out of a sound sleep at 3 in the morning. There is nothing wrong whatsoever with this child, she's smiling and making agreeable baby noises and then, to the immediate distress of the surrounding family members she...wait for it...blows a spit bubble! The grandmom flies into a panic searching for something to wipe the kids mouth while gesturing "see?!?! She's been doing that off an on all day!" We are completely nonplussed. This is the severe respiratory distress? Thankfully, we were able to convince both mom and grandmom that this was completely normal and obtained a refusal.
Another call at 4 am, a few days ago, thankfully another unit jumped it for us. "26A1 (sick person), 3 week old female, pt is crying, mom doesn't know why." Yup. If your baby cries, it is now a medical emergency.
Oh, and just an FYI, if you give your toddler RED colored Children's Liquid Tylenol and then the child vomits, that red color is from the tylenol, it is not blood. Vomited blood does not look cherry flavored delicious.
**Disclaimer. I am by NO means underestimating the stress of having a baby, but a modicum of common sense is probably a good idea to obtain before procreating. Some things should be understood before embarking in the glories of motherhood, like the fact that babies cry (sometimes for no other reason than crankiness) and that they also blow spit bubbles. Three cheers to all those moms (including my sister) who don't immediately panic and call 911 when their diminutive charges make funny noises or, in Emma's case, snores. ** Additional disclaimer, if that baby had been crying non-stop for awhile (I don't know the full story because another unit took the call) I'd rather the mom call someone-including 911-rather than shake the baby to get it to be quiet.
Also, my niece has the cutest ears. :P
okay, that's hysterical.
ReplyDeleteand yes, she does have the cutest ears