The Midnight Urgent Care Visit

Last night before Austin went to bed he started complaining about his belly hurting.  I chalked it up to him trying to make an excuse not to go to bed.  I gave him a dose of Tylenol and put him to bed.  Around 10:15pm I went upstairs when I heard Austin crying.  By the time I made it to his room he was full fledged wailing in a fetal position.  I brought him a heating pad and laid in his bed cuddling with him for a few minutes.  He was crying so hard that I didn't want him waking Aidan (they share a room), so I took him into my room.  Hubby was already asleep, but woke up when we got in bed.  Austin was still screaming and in a fetal position. I asked him where his belly hurt and he pointed to the lower belly (below the belly button).   I asked him if it was an "I need to go to the bathroom" hurt or a "I'm going to throw up" hurt.  He said he didn't know.

After another few minutes of him screaming at the top of his lungs I went to pick him up to hold him in my lap.  The minute I moved him he screamed so loud I was literally deaf for a min.  I asked Roy what I should do and he talked about how if I went to the hospital they would have me there all night.  I said that I wasn't really thinking about the hospital but more along the lines of the Urgent Care that is open until midnight.  The reason I was so concerned is because when Austin was 6 months old he was hospitalized for 2 weeks with salmonella poisoning and seriously almost died.  So it really scared me the way he was screaming about his belly hurting.

I could tell Austin was bothering my husband since he was trying to sleep (oh poor guy!) so I took Austin downstairs to the family room.  He again screamed bloody murder as I moved him.  I asked if he wanted to go to the doctor and he said "maybe tomorrow." After a few more minutes of him crying he said "take me to the doctor"  So I ran upstairs and got my slippers and told Roy I was taking him.


At this point it was 11:15pm and I loaded Austin in the car and headed to the urgent care 5 minutes away.  When we pulled into the parking lot Austin was back to acting fine.  I asked him if his belly still hurt and he said "yes but not as bad."  UGH!  I was kinda irked that now that we were at the urgent care that he was better, but I took him inside anyway.


At 11:30 we were taken into a back room.  The nurse came in and took Austin's vitals and turned on The Little Mermaid on the little TV in the room.  Austin was watching the movie and eating a pedialyte popscicle that the nurse had given him.  The doctor didn't come into the room till 12:10am!!!  I was really getting mad at that point.  I kept thinking "This place closes at midnight. You'd think they would want to get us out of here!"


The doctor came in and asked a bunch of questions.  All of which the answer was "no."
"is he vomiting?"
"does he have diarreah?"
"any fever?"


He looked in Austin's eyes, ears, mouth etc, and then had him lay down and was feeling his belly.  Austin wasn't even moving or flinching.  I said to Austin "earlier you wouldn't even let me move or touch you, but now you're letting him press on your belly with no problem!"  The doctor told me Austin was constipated. I said "Is that what is causing the stomach pain?" and he said "oh yeah, I can feel it right here in his belly."  He then told me he wanted to do a rectal exam on Austin to make sure there wasn't a blockage or something that was causing the constipation.

Austin did really well during the exam and everything checked out normal.  We left the urgent care at 12:40am and came home.  When we got home I gave Austin some Miralax (on advice by the doctor) and then Austin climbed into my bed and we fell sleep not long afterwards.

This morning Austin woke up feeling fine.  He went to school like normal and has been fine ever since. Such a wasted trip that I'll get a nice little bill for soon.