Monday at the E.R.

Welcome back to Taylor Talks!

Today was anything but the day we expected; we ended up spending the entire day in the Emergency Room.

Most days, the twins wake up around the same time, or one will wake up first and wake the other.... they usually come out of their bedroom together and come out to the living room. This morning, I came out of my bedroom and found Twin B on the couch. Twin A wasn't awake yet. I didn't really think anything of it though, because it does happen sometimes where one of the girls will be exhausted, and I figured that Twin A was just wiped out from the excitement yesterday. My mom was making their lunches for school, so I offered to go wake up Twin A and start the girls' morning routines.

I went into the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed. I said, "Good morning," and "Time to wake up," and the usual other morning phrases, but my little sister was still sleeping. So then I picked her up, figuring she would be jolted out of her sleep when I lifted her. Instead, she kind of peeked up at me for a second and fell back to sleep, but she was very limp, like a rag doll. I tried to wake her still, and was about to call my mom into the room when I realized that she had come in behind me. She noticed the odd behavior as well, and she took my sister out of my arms to try to see what was going on.

She was so out of it; listless, limp, sweating hot.... it was very unusual. Plus, Twin A had a ventricle in her brain that had never closed when she was a baby, so this kind of behavior was something that the doctors had always told my parents to be on the lookout for, because it could be a sign that something was wrong with that problem. So my mom was a bit concerned, but didn't want to panic quite yet. On top of that, we could hear a slight wheeze, so my mom put a nebulizer on for her just to see if that would help at all.

After the nebulizer treatment, and sleeping for quite some time, my little sister was slightly more alert, but not her usual self yet. We got her to drink some water, she ate half of an orange (and sucked out the juice from the other half), and we waited to see if maybe she had just been dehydrated. Still, something just wasn't right.

I was going to take Twin B to school, but as we were getting ready to leave, she started crying and saying how she was worried about her twinnie and she didn't want to leave her. We told her that we had to take Twin A to the hospital, and that it was going to be very boring there, but still, Twin B insisted on staying with her. So, my mom let her stay home and she "helped" take care of her sister all day. I wasn't really looking forward to bringing her to the hospital with us, because I figured she'd end up whining and moaning and being a pest, but she was actually really well behaved the whole time.

We got to the E.R. at about 9:30 this morning, and as my mom was getting the initial stuff taken care of, talking to a nurse and whatnot, I sat with Twin B and waited. Then we saw the girls' best friend from school coming out of the E.R., just as my mom and Twin A were coming back toward us. Their friend wasn't feeling well either, and her mom said that they had been there since 5am, but that she had eventually been diagnosed with a bad stomach virus. So even though my mom was still concerned about the brain and the asthma, we hoped that it would turn out to be something simple like the stomach bug.

We ended up being in the E.R. for over four hours. It was insane; no one even comes to check in on you or tell you what's taking so long... it's horrible. But little by little, Twin A drank more and had some fruit, and she started sitting up on her own. Twin B sat with her on the bed and read to her, trying to make her feel better. It was so sweet. Twin A was eventually taken for an X-ray of her stomach, which clarified that she had a bad viral stomach flu-like bug (yes, that's what the doctor called it), and there wasn't much that we could do for her. She basically is just going to be living off of soup and crackers for the next few days, and hopefully she'll get better pretty quickly. Of course, now we're just hoping and praying that Twin B doesn't come down with the same thing, but they usually get each other's sickness within a few days of each other. At least now we'll know what it is and we won't need to go back to the E.R. like today. Though I think if Twin A didn't have this brain condition, we probably would have just gone to the doctor instead of the hospital. Still, it may have been a long, crazy day, but it's worth it to spend the day at the E.R. to find out that nothing awful is going on. We were all very relieved that my little sister was alright.

My mom was able to leave a message for my dad so he could call us during his lunch break, so even though Twin A was too sick to talk much, she could at least hear his voice while she was laying in the hospital bed. On top of that, we received so many nice messages from family and friends wishing my sister a speedy recovery. It was nice to see how many people were concerned for her. Of course, my seventeen-year-old sister had absolutely no idea that any of this was happening until she got home from school, only a few minutes after we had arrived home ourselves. And my brother knew that Twin A wasn't herself this morning, but didn't know that we were taking her to the hospital or anything. So they were quite shocked to hear of our day when they came home.

The twins, my mom, and I were completely wiped out and totally exhausted from the day. I think we all fell asleep at one point while we were relaxing on the couch after we got home. But at least everything turned out okay. I just wish that there was something we could do to actually make my little sister feel better, instead of needing to just wait the bug out.

I'm so glad that my little sister is alright, and now we'll just have to hope that the next few days go well and she gets better soon. It's always an adventure with my family, right?

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Thanks!
Taylor

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