when my husband arrived home. . .

He ended up going to the emergency room. Here's why:

This story actually goes back to the fact that my husband gets/has chronic sinusitis. I may have talked about this a couple months ago, I don't recall. However, he has battled it more this year than ever before. As soon as it clears up, he's likely to get it again. His doctor told him to get a CT scan, but also gave him a refill on his antibiotic in case he needed it. He used that refill a couple weeks ago and as of a week ago was left with the aftermath of a cough, pretty typical.

As for the CT scan, he was attempting to get the order for it so he could have it done, but had a hard time getting a response from the doctor's office. On Monday, he came home from work saying his cough was so bad his throat would close up and he'd be forced to breathe through his nose.

Tuesday morning, he called the doctor. Since his regular physician wasn't in until today, they put him through to a nurse's voice mail, claiming they'd work on the CT order. The nurse never called back. Wednesday morning (remember, the day Little B was throwing up?), he called and left a second voice mail with the nurse. No one called back. Wednesday evening (when he arrived home from work--where the last post left off), after speaking to a roofing contractor about the top of our house, he tried to called the doctor's office once more right before they closed; he spent around 10 minutes on hold attempting to reach a live person to get a nurse for him--instead he left a third voice mail. In those 48 hours, his cough was consistently bad and the throat closing thing never did change.

So, after that last attempt to reach the doctor's office, I encouraged him to call our insurance company's on-call nurse. THEY answered the phone and told him to call 9-1-1 because their objective computer system indicated that his throat closing up could be a potential allergy and therefore life-threatening.

The battle began. He did not want to upset the kids (or himself, let's be honest) with an ambulance. I did not want to take 3 kids to the ER at bedtime. My husband ended up driving himself to the ER. Ha.

He went to the hospital nearest our home, one we'd never been to before. In roughly two hours, he was headed home. Who'da thunk it? I was amazed. He said there was no wait, they determined his throat was spasming because it was so swollen and he was coughing too hard. They wrote a prescription for a nose-spray steroid (he says he'll go work out now...hardy har har), AND. AND. My friends, they did the CT scan since he could never get the order from his doc's office (he has a great doctor, but the rest of the practice is pathetic). They did that because he'd given them his whole history and explained that he was supposed to get one but hadn't received the orders, blah blah blah. The results: a deviated septum.

Funny...Thursday morning, the nurse finally called him back. He simply told her he'd been to the ER, thank you. And hung up (he was chatting with his boss at the time, anyway, so she was becoming a terrible inconvenience).

Today, he saw that "good" doctor again for follow-up. There wasn't much that could be done except to tide him over for the week. But he needs to see an ENT right away. He's been told he'll likely be having surgery soon. I'm starting to think it can't be soon enough.

And that, my friends, is one more way our week has drug out longer than spaghetti. Sigh.

Up soon: the roof. That incorporated into the week as well and will continue to be a drama this summer, knowing us. (That little teaser is a way to make myself post more...I'm trying, really I am!)