I search for those subtle clues, I listen to that little voice
with Zivia Reischer
The irony of the ER is that even emergencies become routine. Sometimes it feels like a conductor pointed his baton and decided it was croup night, and in come ten croup patients marching all in a row, and you feel like you can just say the same thing to every patient.
But whenever that happens I remember Davey.
It was 3 a.m., and I had just seen six patients with identical symptoms. All were children under the age of ten, glassy-eyed from fever and disoriented at suddenly finding themselves in the hospital in middle of the night. Each child was accompanied by one or both parents who told the identical story: fever, cough, not eating or sleeping, something’s wrong with my kid.
We moved from room to room. Lisa had 104 fever but was alert and chipper, if slightly dehydrated. “Probably viral,” I explained to an anxious Mom, “and the height of the fever is less important than the child’s behavior.”
“I always behave,” Lisa asserted.
I chuckled. “She’s fine.”
I told the same thing to Zorrino’s parents. “Looks like a virus,” I said. “The fever means his body is fighting, mounting an immune response. He should do okay.”
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