How Not to Start a Vacation

So this is the kid who saves her first visit to the ER until we're A) out of network, B) out of state, C) on vacation, or D) all of the above. 

Since, I can't print it upside down anywhere, the answer is just plain old D. 

We left on a Thursday morning to head to the Outer Banks. We spent one night in a hotel en route and then finished off our trip on Friday morning. We made it to Lainie's at noon on Friday. 

By 4:30 PM we were in the ER after a stop in to Urgent Care where we were told that A) they didn't have a pediatric care person and B) based on her symptoms she'd need an ultrasound which they also didn't have so C) report to ER a few miles down the beach.

Okiedokie. 

We inform the ER staff that she's presenting with severe lower right abdominal pain and vomiting so they prep her, do a urine test, get a port in so they can draw blood (and during which we confirmed she is related to her PaPa and Hinrew as she passed out and thrashed around) and ordered an ultrasound. They didn't find any infection in her urine, though she was dehydrated (big surprise to anyone who knows her. Not.) so they ran a bag of fluids, which made her cold. They didn't find an elevated white blood cell count. They didn't find anything enlarged or in any way out of the ordinary during the ultrasound. Based on all of that, they released her and told us to return in several hours if she started a fever, which she also didn't have, or if the pain intensified.

Well, the pain did intensify and had her begging to go back to the ER, which is something I never thought would come out of her mouth especially once she was reminded that they've have to stick her again. It hadn't been anywhere near the timetable they'd told us, either, so cooler heads prevailed and we got some Advil into her for a little while before it came back up, too. She finally got some sleep at around one AM and slept through the rest of the night. She was kept on a clear diet for 24 hours and then some, but she was very much her old self. I'm sure the ocean helped.

I can't say enough good things about the staff. Everyone was calm, friendly, reassuring- everything you want someone to be towards a scared, hurting kid. They all loved her, as she was as sweet and funny as she could be given the circumstances, including telling her male nurse that he smelled good, which tickled him to no end.  

The general consensus seems to be "hormone dump", which freaked her out because she thought that it would hurt like that every single time from here on out. She hasn't officially started anything yet, but Those in the Know are hedging bets on fairly soon and that it won't be that bad again. 

If she hijacks MY cycle, I'm sticking her with the ER bill...