Emergency Room Christmas

Happy New Year everyone! I hope that your 2020 is off to a good start. Today, I’m going to share a story that goes way back to a time when the Pittsburgh Steelers were 8-7 and still had a chance to reach the postseason. A time before Jake Guentzel of the Pittsburgh Penguins needed shoulder surgery. Yes, I’m going all the way back to December 25, 2019.

On Christmas, my family joined millions of others across the country by visiting a movie theater. We purchased tickets to see the animated film "Spies In Disguise" featuring the voices of Will Smith and Tom Holland.



We bought popcorn for the entire family to enjoy. Then, we sat in our reclining seats to eat our popcorn and watch the film. I should probably mention that patrons 3 and over are required to purchase their own tickets. Kids that are under 3, like Luigi (2) get in for free and have to sit on your lap. Not a problem.

During the movie, both The Moose (8) and Pedro Tulo (5) really enjoyed the ability to move their seats into a reclining position including an adjustable footrest. Near the end of the movie, Luigi decided that he had enough of sitting on someone’s lap and wanted to move around a little. There was plenty of room in our row to do this, and he could easily go between our four seats. Apparently not paying attention to his brother, The Moose closed the adjustable footrest...on Luigi’s foot. Luigi started screaming, so I quickly took him out of the theater. He calmed down after a few minutes, but he refused to let me put him down and he kept his head on my shoulder. We eventually went back inside because I had to know if Will Smith would turn back into a person from a pigeon. (I won’t spoil this for you.) I stood in the back with Luigi still in my arms. The movie ended, and we went home. Luigi was unable to put any weight on his foot though and cried whenever we tried to put him down to walk. With limited options on Christmas day (and agreement from our on-call pediatrician), my wife took Luigi to the emergency room while I stayed home with the older boys. The short story (since I wasn’t there) is that all of the X-Rays came back negative, Luigi was given some ibuprofen, and they came home. He also received Shaggy and The Headless Horseman as a gift from the hospital, so that almost made the trip worthwhile (especially since I haven't received a bill yet).

Oh, I also picked up some Chinese food. Christmas tradition!

Luigi limped some for the days following Christmas, and he still sometimes winces a little when we put on his shoe, but he’s fine. I think a New Year’s resolution for 2020 is to visit the emergency room less as a family this year than the two times we visited in 2019. In addition, between this incident and how I barely escaped Frozen 2, perhaps I shouldn’t take my family to the movies anymore!

Introducing Luigi

Long-running television sitcoms often introduce a new character, such as a baby, to create new storylines. Ross and Rachel had a child together near the end of Friends. Despite already having Kirk Cameron, Tracey Gold, and (looks up name) Jeremy Miller, Alan Thicke (RIP) and Joanna Kerns had another child on Growing Pains late in its run. Leonardo DiCaprio also appeared as a series regular for some reason too even though they could have given more time to Boner (RIP). Anyway, after almost 13 years of writing this blog, I needed some new topics. Ziggy is now a 9 year-old "senior" cat that doesn't do much. The Moose is in first grade, and still several years away from fully creating his own storylines. While Pedro Tulo provided excellent content back in June, there hasn't been much blog-worthy content to share lately. With the school year underway, life was becoming routine. There's good in stability, but it doesn't help Sean's Ramblings since I know that you, the readers, expect fascinating stories. Therefore, it was time to introduce a brand new character, and I'm proud to present Luigi, born last month at 6 pounds, 13 ounces.

Luigi's due date was October 9th though we expected him to arrive a week or two early like his older brothers. I actually joked that he would arrive either during a conference I was attending or during Yom Kippur services. Now the latter would have been interesting. Instead, Luigi shocked everyone by arriving five weeks early. The 6 pound, 13 ounce weight was a bit deceiving as he looked like a full-term baby, but he was still a preemie and went straight to the NICU. His breathing wasn't great upon his debut, but fortunately, he was always able to breathe on his own without assistance. Eating was the bigger issue, so he had an IV for the first 3-4 days of his life. Then, he was jaundice like his brothers since apparently we create jaundice babies. I've found that if you pretend that your baby is in some futuristic space machine that gives him or her superpowers (like, um, fighting high bilirubin levels), it makes the process go better.

After 7 days, Luigi was able to come home. I didn't write much about the hospital experience for The Moose or Pedro Tulo (though I did write some), so I wanted to share some early life moments surrounding Luigi.

- Actually, before we continue, in case you're wondering, Luigi is not my son's actual name. We had a first name all picked out but were struggling coming up with a middle name, knowing that we wanted it to start with L. While brainstorming, Luigi was thrown out as a suggestion. We both loved it, though again not for his actual middle name. Hence, Luigi is now his stage (well, blog) name.

- I should also probably mention that The Moose (age 6) and Pedro Tulo (3) had no idea that we went to the hospital. My wife's water broke at night after they went to sleep (and while I fell asleep watching TV on the couch), we called a neighbor to come over to "watch" the kids, Luigi arrived at 2:48 AM, and I came back home around 6:00 AM to get them up and ready for school.

- Luigi was brought into this world with the help of probably my favorite doctor who also delivered Pedro Tulo. I find that she is straightforward and has a positive bedside manner with a great sense of humor. It also helps that she grew up close to where I grew up and is a fellow Steelers fan. All of these characteristics are equally important for an OB-GYN!

- I'm not a doctor and I don't play one on the internet. However, I have the hand-washing routine for any medical professional involved in surgery completely down pat. This was posted in the NICU, and I followed it religiously.

- For a few days, my son was in the NICU while my wife was in the "Family Centered Care" portion of the hospital. Despite the fact they were on the same floor, I constantly said that I had to go down to the other area.

- All of the nurses at the hospital were fantastic. They were caring and professional and probably don't receive the appreciation they deserve. Therefore, I want to say hello to all of the nurses out there.



- The hospital has a wellness garden with a labyrinth that was quite calming. I guess it helps that this labyrinth was not the one featured in the movie, um, Labyrinth.

- Between the time the baby was born and arrived home, I made a trip to Target to get some supplies. I cannot confirm or deny that I bought 5 bottles of hand sanitizer. Okay, since you continued bothering me with these questions, it's true. It's all true! I did buy all of those bottles. And I would do it again too!

I also bought Lanolin at Target, and in one of the highlights of my life, I heard two women trying to find this and pointed out where it was located. They were in awe of me (or at least they were in my mind).

- These signs seemed to be above every toilet. Are there other things besides wipes people are flushing down the toilet at hospitals?

- Luigi was fairly quiet upon his arrival, and it took him a few days to make some noise. Now, a month later, the boy has some serious lungs. He lets you know when he's hungry and is quite persistent. I'm pretty sure neighbors about 4 (or 40!) units down can hear his screams.

- Since Luigi was a preemie, we tried to limit how close his older brothers got to him. The last thing we wanted was to get Luigi sick from germs brought home from elementary school and preschool. Finally, after I made sure he washed his hands and put on hand sanitizer, I let The Moose hold Luigi as long as he didn't tell his mom. Naturally, as soon as The Moose saw his mom, he immediately told her that he held Luigi and was so proud of this. Thanks for keeping this between us, kid.

- I may have taken a few graham crackers from the hospital.

- The Moose is enthralled by Luigi and wants to be around him and help. It's really sweet. Meanwhile, Pedro Tulo has little interest in his new brother. I'm sure that will change once they both get older.

Thanks to Luigi and his interaction with his brothers, Ziggy, and his parents, there are many more stories to share. Sean's Ramblings should be renewed for at least a few more seasons because of this!


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