Medical bills could give me night terrors

Little Bit woke screaming last night. We rushed into the room to find him sitting upright in the middle of the bed. He wasn't fully awake and continued to scream, cry, or say, "No!" every now and then. I got him to lie down, snuggled up to him, and tried to comfort him. About 15-20 minutes later, he was finally breathing deeper and obviously in a deeper sleep. My first thought was night terrors. Screaming, sweating, thrashing around, impossible to wake up - yep. Supposedly night terrors aren't remembered the next day. He was his usual bright and happy self this morning.

Medical bills and statements from my insurance for the two ER visits this year have been trickling in. Now we're really seeing the disadvantage of working for a small company versus a big company. My insurance coverage is nowhere as good as it was at my previous job. Based on what my current insurance paid and the bills from the doctors, hospital, technicians, etc, we owe $2000+ for two ER visits! Compare this to the coverage at my previous job: Little Bit spent two and a half weeks in the NICU. We paid $0, even though the total bill for all the NICU costs (room, nurses, doctors, labs, xrays, specialists, etc) and my labor/delivery was about a quarter of a million dollars. Again, we paid zero dollars. My insurance at the time, with the large company I worked for, covered it all.

Daycare has a program that will pay up to $5000 towards the medical bills not covered by personal insurance when a child is hurt in their care. So at least we won't have to try to squeeze $2000+ out of thin air.

The whole "in-network" "out-of-network" thing is a crock, too. The first hospital ER we went to was "out-of-network", so not very much insurance coverage. OK. Lesson learned. We went to a different hospital ER for the second incident. My insurance statements say that the hospital was "in-network", so the only thing to worry about was my deductible. However, the doctor who treated Little Bit's arm at the in-network hospital ER is considered "out-of-network". WTF!? That means we owe the ER doc close to $800. That's bulls---!!!

He's such a sweetheart

Little Bit wanted to wear his sling for a few days, even though his arm was better. That was fine. It reminded them at daycare to be extra careful. DH talked with the daycare director and the teacher responsible. The teacher was just crying and so sorry it had happened. She said that she had taken hold of his hand since he had been hitting other kids. He threw himself down on the ground because he didn't want his hand held. She held on instead of letting go, and that's when his arm got pulled. She didn't realize it had happened. I know it was an accident, but I'm still mad it happened. However, Little Bit isn't holding a grudge. DH told me that as they were leaving daycare on Friday that Little Bit told that teacher, "Bye! I love you!"

I feel so bad that his self-esteem took such a beating last week though. The whole thing about being consolidated in with the "babies" after getting his arm hurt really kicked his feet out from under him. He said several times over the weekend, "I baby. I no big kid," even though he'd been so proud to be in the big kid class last Monday. He really needed extra TLC from us over the weekend.

We went to the ER today; how was your Monday?

I had dropped Little Bit off at daycare this morning, then came home to crawl back into bed. DH and I have the flu/bug that Little Bit had last week, and we feel awful. Not even half an hour had passed when daycare called. Little Bit had had an accident. He was running across the room and fell into the edge of a low bookcase cabinet. The daycare director said she thought he might need stitches. Eeeep!

Our brave little guy was subdued when we got there to pick him up. He had only cried briefly when the center director called me (probably because he knew she was talking to me). The gash on his forehead was quite deep.

We drove him to the ER. I sat in the backseat next to him for comfort. On the way there, he threw up all over himself. Note to self - next time bring both a clean shirt and clean pants in case of emergency.

No stitches this time. The doc cleaned the gash (traumatic for both Little Bit and me because he cried during it), then used dermabond to seal the edges. They did a CAT scan to double check there wasn't anything else to be concerned about.

Little Bit and I had a nap together this afternoon. He's now running up and down the hallway, giving me gray hairs as I worry about him falling and opening up the wound again. How do you get an active toddler to stop running without duct taping him to a chair?

Thursday's Tale of Torture

Today's post is brought to you by the letters T, M, and I.

Yesterday morning the fun began with my appointment at the dentist. The dental hygienist I'm sure is a lovely lady, and any other time I would have happily chatted with her about our toddlers who are so near in age. However, the torture of my gums with an instrument called a water pik (ha, how about water laser?) did not lighten my mood. Yeah, yeah, that's what I get for waiting too long between appointments. Just shut up, lady, I'm trying not to punch you in the stomach.

The fun continued in the afternoon's appointment with my ENT (aka, the sinus doc). First there was the long metal scope he stuck in my nostrils to look into my sinuses. Then, he needed to clean out one side so that the nebulized antibiotics could finish getting rid of any sinus infection. My brother used to offer to use a Roto-rooter on my sinuses when I had a bad infection. Well, that's what the doc did. He kept turning up the suction, because apparently my sinuses have discovered a great recipe for cement. No one's inner sinuses should have to feel that. When the suction thingy of doom didn't get it all, the doc *scraped* at the inside of my sinuses. shudder

So, I left there with both my gums and sinuses scraped and raw and achy. Obviously I should have scheduled a pap smear and a colonoscopy yesterday just to complete the fun. I totally stopped at Dairy Queen on the way home.

I'll take the drink with rum in it, please

Little Bit and I went over to a friend's house on Sunday for a playdate with her almost 4-year old boy. Another friend dropped off her 4-year old boy. And my friend has a 6 month old boy. Can you say chaos? The kids had lots of fun, though. We went into the backyard so the boys could play on the large playset. The set was almost too large and out of scale for him, but Lil' Bit had fun climbing the ladder (with Mom's help to steady him) and sliding down the slide. After we all went inside, my friend began to make lunch for us. I took the opportunity to take a potty break.

As I walked back into the kitchen, I see that the back door is open and Little Bit and my friend's son were not inside anymore. Hrmmm, I thought, I wouldn't have let them into the backyard without being right there, but my friend thought she could watch them out the window. The next instant I heard Little Bit screaming/crying, and it was that "I'm hurt" serious cry that stops a mom's heart. I ran outside to find him lying in the ruins of a shattered plastic wagon, with cuts and blood all over his face. I scooped him up and ran back inside. His lower lip was bleeding and starting to swell. I checked over his wounds as I tried to clean them.

Evidently, the plastic wagon had gotten brittle by being outside in the sun for months on end. It was lying on its side, when Little Bit had fallen with his full weight on it. The side of the wagon had shattered into jagged pieces of plastic. There were scratches on the bridge of his nose and under/around his right eye. He came *very* close (way too close) to cutting his eye.

Little Bit had calmed down within about 5-10 minutes and was happily munching away on hot dogs. Meanwhile, I was saying, "That took a couple years off my life!" The cuts were mostly pretty shallow, but poor Little Bit's face looked like he had had an argument with a cat. He got lots of sympathy from the teachers at daycare when he returned. Today, the cuts look much more healed and less red.

My friend felt just awful about it. But you certainly don't expect a plastic wagon to shatter like that. It could have also happened when we were right there next to the playset. My friend's husband commented that he had gone to the ER as a boy for a lot more serious things than cuts on his face.

Yes, I had a nice drink with dinner later. :-)

Ouch...

Our little monkey was climbing on top of low cubbies at daycare today when he flipped off and smacked the bridge of his nose on the edge of the cabinet. The top of his nose is swollen quite a bit. He's starting to look like a Romulan, don't ya think? His left eye is going to be quite a shiner tomorrow. Poor little man.