CODE GREEN

The state of New York requires lead tests. I don't know the details of who, when, etc., but so far 2 of us have been tested.

A few weeks ago at Katelyn's 9-month well-baby, she got the mandatory prick. Her test came back high, so they wanted us to go to the hospital and get real blood drawn for a more accurate test. Understandably, I've been putting it off. I HATE when my babies have to be stuck with needles, especially since normal hospital people seem to suck at doing babies (in contrast to those at a childrens hospital).

But I couldn't procrastinate any further, so off we went to the hospital this morning. They looked at both her arms and said they couldn't find any good veins. The familiar dread set in. Yeah, I knew how this was going to go. Oh well. They tried to find a vein in her left arm. I held her while she screamed and writhed in pain. (By the way, Jeffy was doing sympathy screams from the stroller. Poor little guy was worried about his sister. :))

They couldn't get it, so they stopped. Then one of the technicians noticed that her arm was all red and a few bumps were appearing. Her other arm was red as well as one of her legs. I wasn't especially concerned. You hold a baby down tight, and the places you're holding her are going to get red. That's just how it is. But the technician was weirded out by the bumps, so she called her supervisor, who went and asked someone else what to do. A few minutes later she came back to tell me that she was calling it a code green, like I knew what a code green was.

Apparently a code green means the emergency room team is called in to evaluate. A few minutes later, a flood of people came in, expecting an emergency. The redness and bumps had mostly disappeared, so they just kind of looked at her, looked at each other in confusion, and left. So the code green was over. It was all kind of weird.

After they left, the technician asked if I was comfortable with continuing with the test. Um, yeah, Get this over with and get us out of here! She still couldn't find a vein. Ugh.

Thankfully, she called over another technician, who made me feel immediately more at ease. She asked Katelyn's name and started talking to her about what a good baby she was, how pretty her eyes were, etc., and she calmed down and just looked right at her. I could tell this technician was much better (at least more experienced). She found a vein and got it all done without too much screaming from Katelyn. I was so grateful she had been called in. Who knows how many tries it would have taken the other lady.

So that was our adventure for the day. We came away with two pricked arms, no allergies noted, and about 7 stickers, all of which ended up on Jeffy's shirt.

Not ideal, but it always could be worse. :)

Just for kicks. Katelyn being patient with Jeffy's foot. They're cute.