How to Explain an IV to a Six Year-Old
We went to the wrong hospital. There are two near us but we were new to the area and we were confused. The other hospital had a children’s ER. This one was open to all, mainly older people, who sat in their beds moaning. Our 6 year-old, Will, was nervous. The good thing about asthma is you get pushed to the front of the line in the ER. Especially with kids, asthma wipes that blasé look right off their faces. That’s the only good thing about asthma.
They moved Will into another area of the ER so he could have his own room. The doctor turned on Cartoon Network to try to distract him. Ed, Edd and Eddy. It didn’t work. Will was screaming that he couldn’t do this. He knew he was supposed to be calm but he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t stop crying. I'd never seen him like this, in a complete state of panic. After two days of trying to reverse the course, two trips to the pediatrician, the ER doctor ordered steroids to be delivered intravenously. He was trying to stop asthma from drowning our son.
Asthma is a piece of shit, relic of a disease--an insidious, creeper, sometimes killer of a disease. Despite the research and high-falutin’ talk about maintenance and protocols and other jargon doctors use, asthma remains a mystery to them. No one can say what causes it, what ends it, who will get it, how seriously they’ll be affected. The truth is they just don’t know. And after centuries of studying and treating asthma, nothing much has changed.
To get back to my original question, how do you explain an IV to a six year old? Well the answer is that you don’t. If you tell a little kid he’s about to be held down by three adults including his parents while someone sticks a needle under his skin to begin dumping steroids into his bloodstream, well he is not going to be amenable to that situation. You can reason with him and force him and stroke his forehead, but the fact remains there is something foreign stuck inside his arm and he wants it out now.
Asthma medications are worse than the disease. They all induce nervousness or anxiety, if not outright mania. Even the naturopaths suggest drinking a cup of hot black coffee at the onset of an attack. Still all the medical professionals will tell you it is essential to stay calm. “We can’t help you if you can’t settle down.” The effects are startling even in adults. Hands shaking, nausea, irritability, irrationality, pulse racing, even cardiac arrest. But stay calm. By all means stay calm.
Sometimes as a parent, you realize you will do things that you cannot take back. Sometimes those things are done in the heat of the moment. You can’t take another question while you are trying to work. You’ve asked 367 times if he needs to go to the bathroom, and he swears he does not, until you are staring intently at the latest video selections and suddenly he can’t hold it anymore. You just snap. Every parent has their breaking point and kids are the masters of pouring gasoline on a fire.
That night I gave the ER doctor my consent to run an IV. It’s for his own good, I told myself. They strapped his little arm to a board to stop him from bending his elbow. The steroids were stinging and a red circle was forming around the needle. Will cried the entire time, almost two hours. I looked into his frightened, sobbing eyes and realized I couldn’t take this back.
Kids are really just so little and so easily hurt by the world around them. They actually think people are good, and I could see the very concept of betrayal taking shape as my kid realized I was going to hurt him on purpose. That no matter how you try to sell it, that he needs it, that you are trying to help him, that it will be over soon, it doesn’t matter to him. Because kids haven’t honed their life negotiating skills yet; the barter economy adults navigate as they trade this sadness for that reward. Kids believe you shouldn’t hurt somebody on purpose, no matter what.
This was our 5th visit to the ER. This past summer he knocked his two front teeth out and had to have his face glued together where one of the teeth pierced the skin. Each time, he suffered through it. We’d blow up surgical gloves to make him laugh or one of the nurses would slip him a popsicle. But this time was different. This he could not understand.
He fell right to sleep when we got home. Sleep does not come easily for my boy Will but he was so tired. We were all so tired. When I woke up a few hours later to give him his breathing treatment, I could barely move him to get him propped up on the pillow. He was so out of it, he was unable to help me, just completely limp in my arms. As I turned on the machine, the noise must have triggered a memory for him. He started kicking and moaning, still asleep but aware on some level that a terrible thing happened tonight and he needed to stop something terrible from happening again.
I tried to comfort him. I tried to tell him. “Will, it’s mommy. It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you.” But that would be a lie. And he knew it, even as he slept.
They moved Will into another area of the ER so he could have his own room. The doctor turned on Cartoon Network to try to distract him. Ed, Edd and Eddy. It didn’t work. Will was screaming that he couldn’t do this. He knew he was supposed to be calm but he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t stop crying. I'd never seen him like this, in a complete state of panic. After two days of trying to reverse the course, two trips to the pediatrician, the ER doctor ordered steroids to be delivered intravenously. He was trying to stop asthma from drowning our son.
Asthma is a piece of shit, relic of a disease--an insidious, creeper, sometimes killer of a disease. Despite the research and high-falutin’ talk about maintenance and protocols and other jargon doctors use, asthma remains a mystery to them. No one can say what causes it, what ends it, who will get it, how seriously they’ll be affected. The truth is they just don’t know. And after centuries of studying and treating asthma, nothing much has changed.
To get back to my original question, how do you explain an IV to a six year old? Well the answer is that you don’t. If you tell a little kid he’s about to be held down by three adults including his parents while someone sticks a needle under his skin to begin dumping steroids into his bloodstream, well he is not going to be amenable to that situation. You can reason with him and force him and stroke his forehead, but the fact remains there is something foreign stuck inside his arm and he wants it out now.
Asthma medications are worse than the disease. They all induce nervousness or anxiety, if not outright mania. Even the naturopaths suggest drinking a cup of hot black coffee at the onset of an attack. Still all the medical professionals will tell you it is essential to stay calm. “We can’t help you if you can’t settle down.” The effects are startling even in adults. Hands shaking, nausea, irritability, irrationality, pulse racing, even cardiac arrest. But stay calm. By all means stay calm.
Sometimes as a parent, you realize you will do things that you cannot take back. Sometimes those things are done in the heat of the moment. You can’t take another question while you are trying to work. You’ve asked 367 times if he needs to go to the bathroom, and he swears he does not, until you are staring intently at the latest video selections and suddenly he can’t hold it anymore. You just snap. Every parent has their breaking point and kids are the masters of pouring gasoline on a fire.
That night I gave the ER doctor my consent to run an IV. It’s for his own good, I told myself. They strapped his little arm to a board to stop him from bending his elbow. The steroids were stinging and a red circle was forming around the needle. Will cried the entire time, almost two hours. I looked into his frightened, sobbing eyes and realized I couldn’t take this back.
Kids are really just so little and so easily hurt by the world around them. They actually think people are good, and I could see the very concept of betrayal taking shape as my kid realized I was going to hurt him on purpose. That no matter how you try to sell it, that he needs it, that you are trying to help him, that it will be over soon, it doesn’t matter to him. Because kids haven’t honed their life negotiating skills yet; the barter economy adults navigate as they trade this sadness for that reward. Kids believe you shouldn’t hurt somebody on purpose, no matter what.
This was our 5th visit to the ER. This past summer he knocked his two front teeth out and had to have his face glued together where one of the teeth pierced the skin. Each time, he suffered through it. We’d blow up surgical gloves to make him laugh or one of the nurses would slip him a popsicle. But this time was different. This he could not understand.
He fell right to sleep when we got home. Sleep does not come easily for my boy Will but he was so tired. We were all so tired. When I woke up a few hours later to give him his breathing treatment, I could barely move him to get him propped up on the pillow. He was so out of it, he was unable to help me, just completely limp in my arms. As I turned on the machine, the noise must have triggered a memory for him. He started kicking and moaning, still asleep but aware on some level that a terrible thing happened tonight and he needed to stop something terrible from happening again.
I tried to comfort him. I tried to tell him. “Will, it’s mommy. It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you.” But that would be a lie. And he knew it, even as he slept.
Labels: asthma, blog, motherhood, parenting
posted by Beck at
6:17 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home