Misery loves company.

Aside from a miserable overnight shift last night until this morning, I haven’t left the couch in days. Hello, pediatric emergency medicine. I feel as if a nuclear bomb was ignited in my throat, not eating, doing my share of coughing up my lungs. And insult to injury, as I was walking by a mirror during my shift, I noticed one of my eyes seemed a little red. Yes, that’s right, good ole ‘pink eye,’ conjunctivitis, which would explain the slightly blurry vision and watery eye that kept giving me problems during my shift.

Enough of my violin playing, shall we? The other day I picked up a double chart, which means siblings. Chief complaints: iron burns…from last week. My heart sank. Who waits a week to bring in children who have multiple burns from an iron? I prayed for the truth, but instead I got an unbelievable history, burns that appeared to be different ages and suspicious locations, two very active children, and mother yelling at them the entire time. The two beautiful children, although very active and into everything, were amazing. One came up, gave me a big hug, and wanted to play with my stethoscope. I informed an attending physician of the case, and both attendings in the booth turned to me and gestured a look of professional disgust. Consultation to the social worker in order to involved Child Protective Services (CPS), check. Consultation to the burn service, check. The resident on the trauma / burn service actually disagreed with our standpoint of abuse. He found the implausible story to be plausible. This worried me, given the number of red flags being waived high in the air. As the hours dragged on, anyone walking by the room could hear the mother yelling at her children. Two or three hours later, I received unfortunate news from the social worker: no CPS visit tonight as they will go to the family place of residence in the morning. I would have to discharge these two children home given the circumstances. Now, I do not know a lot about how CPS works. I do know they are spread thin. But, the disposition of these two patients really worried and still worries me to this day.