This past week has been an eventful one around the Rollo house. Last Thursday we got a call from school saying we needed to come get our oldest because there had been an accident on the playground and he’d need stitches. I’ll spare you the graphic photos, but when we picked him up my four year old said “why does my brother have a hole in his nose?” It was not a pretty sight.
The poor kid’s clothes were covered in blood and he was sobbing. While I picked him up from school, my husband started googling which urgent care locations would service our insurance. He texted me the information of one and we were off!
My son now has a stitched up nose, two black eyes and a report from the radiologist saying he has two small fractures in his nose.
The next few days were a whirlwind of trying to find an ENT that would work with us and dealing with insurance and doctors.
Not a fun weekend.
Today, I took him to his regular pediatrician (that we love!) to get her opinion on everything since the urgent care doctor and the ENT were giving us the run-around.
As soon as I told her where we had taken him her face fell.
“They are notoriously horrible, never take him there again.” She said.
She then told me about two urgent care clinics that have pediatricians on site that would have been better places to take him. I can’t help but think of the worries and money we would have saved if I had known which urgent care locations were best.
Parents spend so much time choosing a pediatrician, but I never hear any one talking about taking the time to choose an urgent care location. It’s just as important! Thankfully, they did an okay job taking care of my son. I do have a list of complaints about our experience in the urgent care location we selected BUT none of them extend to my six year old.
Now that we know who our pediatrician recommends I won’t have to worry about having issues at a random urgent care location again. On my to-do list for this week is to call up the urgent care locations she recommended and make sure they are in-network with our insurance. Then, I’m printing off that information for our fridge AND our babysitters.
This is one huge oversight in our health and safety plan, and I hope my mistake can help you be more prepared if something happens to your kids. It’s a simple fix that can be solved with a quick call to your pediatrician to ask her who she recommends for urgent care OR ask her the next time you are in the office with your kids.
It’s worth thinking about this ahead of time, because when you’re rushing in the car with a crying kid, you want to know for sure you are going somewhere that you can trust to take care of your child, and hopefully an urgent care location with pediatricians on sight, like the ones ours recommended to us.
— Update on my son — I know several of you were following along on Instagram as I shared about his injury.
He’s doing really well and recovering nicely, Batman band-aids make everything better. Our only trouble with him has been getting him to stay calm and not climb or jump around as much as he normally does while he recovers. We have two follow-up appointments this week; one to remove the stitches and one to see about his fractures. After those two appointments I think we should be done and can put this entire adventure behind us!
Do you have any tips for planning ahead for accidents? Share with us in the comments so we can all be a bit more prepared!
Joanne says
We learned the hard way too. We took our little guy to the nearest hospital after splitting open his upper lip.. ya, know that little space between your nose and lip, we could see his teeth through it once the hospital stopped the bleeding. We found out from our pediatrician that emergency dept should only ever be used for bleeding that won’t stop, as they have a good plastic surgeon, but don’t ever take your kid there for anything else. How scary. Plan ahead to be prepared but sometimes you just go to the closest place that can help….which was what we did when we couldn’t stop the bleeding…three stitches later amd one good punch to the Dr’s face and he healed up perfectly. Glad your little guys is ok! He’ll have a scar (badge of bravery)to show off for a little while..then before you know it you won’t see it at all.
Nicole says
So true! My son has had stitches in his face FOUR TIMES!! We have an excellent urgent care place right up the street from us. We’ve been there so many times, the nurses almost don’t need to take a history. They’re like, “It’s Raymond again! Let’s see if your weight has changed from last week.” Lol! It’s not quite that bad, but close.
Kerry says
Move to aus we have free hospital free doctor home visits if my child was injured it has never occurred to me to start ringing every man and his dog about where i can take them i feel sorry for any parent that has to go through this
Robyn says
My gracious. I’m sad this is your reality! Just today, my 6yr old got a facial wound that needed stitching while at school. I picked him up & only my only thought was emergency or walk in clinic to help him. Either place would see him… without complaint, extended health benefits, or a bill. (Canada)
Paula says
I was talking to another friend in Canada too, and she was telling me the differences. It’s rough! Before we could even get in they had to check our insurance (which wasn’t going to cover any it because we haven’t reached our deductible yet) and so she had to get the full price and have me approve that I would pay it before they would even see him. As my kid is sitting there in the office bleeding and fall asleep (4x!) from his injury. It’s craziness…I always think it’s just normal until I talk to a Canadian!
Sarah AJ says
How hard it is to be a parent and see your child injured. Though, batman bandaids would go a long way in our household, possibly to the point of re-injury ;)
Definitely worth thinking about, though, calling ahead. I find when I travel I look for the devil in the details, but having read this, I’ll be inclined to find out more and be forewarned and forearmed at home so to speak.
How cute is it to see a little boy with two black eyes, a bandaid and a big smile nonetheless. That’s the spirit, champ.
Heidi says
My daughter had a colostomy and we did a trip to Disney I called around to find a hospital that dealt with kids and colostomies. I am so glad that I did my research because her stoma prolapsed and I knew where to go when we called an ambulance. Because of this I didn’t have to go to several hospitals