Cox South ER - Not a fun place to visit

Cox South broke ground today on a brand new ER, and I can tell you from firsthand experience that they need the extra room.

I spent all of this morning and afternoon visiting the current ER.

Grant busted his bottom lip today doing stroller gymnastics while I was trying on swimwear for our upcoming Caribbean cruise in the Kohl's department store dressing room.

In a flash, while I was snapping spandex, my nimble 18-month-old had mounted his Baby Jogger, and before I could consider outcomes for his fate, I saw the whole cart tumble backward. His head hit the deep, brown door first, richoceting backward.

"Oh Grant!" I exclaimed, while a woman in a nearby stall, hearing the commotion and the resulting screams from Grant, called over the door, "Is everything okay?"

At first I thought everything was okay, and I spoke over the door loud enough to be heard over Grants wails, "Yes, I think so." A bad fall, but no more than what would amount to a bump on the head. I scooped up my monkey and shushed him, and hushed. That's about the moment I noticed my shoulder was dripping with blood. I took a closer look and saw that Grant's bottom lip and the inside of his mouth were pouring red.

"Oh God!" came my next comment. "Oh, God!" I looked for the source and depth of his cut.

This is where the woman on the other side of the door became my angel. She called for help. "Help!" she said. "We need help in here!"

This woman had absolutely no reservations about shouting or demanding attention, which was good because I was preoccupied with trying to assess the damage to my son. She ran out of the dressing room and before long had returned with a clerk.

I will spare you the horrible details of the inefficiency of Kohl's department store and how they cared more for protecting themselves from being sued than from helping me.

I signed "Please don't sue us" paperwork so fast that I've probably signed away my next of kin and any right to sue a major department store for building incredibly thick dressing room doors. Anything to get me out of there and to the ER.

Problem was - I was no where near my car. It was being serviced at the dealership up the road. I had walked with Grant to the clothing store in his stroller. I celled Gary and told him I was running back to the dealership. Maybe they could give me a courtesy shuttle to the ER. Gary said he would meet me there.

This is the point where I am really glad to have started running. Adrenaline got me to a shuttle and to the ER in less time than it took Gary to arrive from work.

When we arrived at Cox South, there were two people in the waiting room - both looking very much like they were in line for a Swine Flu culture.

The admit nurse, looked at Grant, saw that all he needed was stitches and put him at the bottom of the priority list.

That was at 10:30 a.m.

In the five hours that passed thereafter, more people with suspicious respiratory diseases showed up, addicts to drugs, stroke patients, heart attacks, car accidents, angry relatives of said car accident victims - they all came and sat and then got called back into the back room ahead of little Grant, who may have looked bad but was mostly hungry and bored.

Let me tell you, the ER waiting room was a sad place to visit. By 4:30, over five hours of waiting for a room - wrestling him away from dirty toys, the floor, walking him up and down the hallways and sidewalk - religiously washing his hands with Purex - we had finally made it back to see the doc. He took good care of our little man - numbed his wound, and stitched him right up.

The whole procedure took no more than a few minutes, but Grant screamed for the most of it out of fear and hunger, but mostly fear - until his little emotional core couldn't take it anymore and he, to quote the ER nurse, "went to his happy place." Grant passed out and didn't wake up for over an hour.

I held him in my arms and listened while he took shallow shuddering hiccupy breathes, in and out, in and out, hiccup, in and out, in and out, hiccup. His eyes squeezed shut.

Gary was positively yellow. Hearing your son scream and not being able to do anything to prevent it will make any parent weak-kneed.

We're all safe at home now, but I can testify that Cox definitely needs new ER digs. The place was overcrowded.

They kept taking patients back to check vitals and then making them return to their chairs because they didn't have enough beds to treat everyone. The new facility will have three times the capacity as the current one. August 2010 can't come fast enough. If not for my benefit (my fingers are crossed that I will never need to use the ER again) then at least for the Springfield metro area; it needs the extra space.