'AITA for taking my son to the emergency room even though we didn't have the money for it?' UPDATED
"AITA for taking my son to the emergency room?"
ancient-donutplop writes:
My (35f) fiancé (34m) was chasing our 22-month-old around the house for fun. The fun ended abruptly when he slipped on the floor and smacked his head on the tile. It was so hard I felt the vibration from 10 feet away.
My fiancé immediately swept him up and held him. He cried for a good 15 minutes, and there was a huge bloodshot lump on the back of his head. Our son is a magnet for head injuries, and I've always been worried, but this time it was so hard that I felt it in my gut.
Quite literally, I wanted to vomit from fear and started tearing up. He seemed quite lethargic afterward, just kind of slumped in his father's lap and not wanting a popsicle, which is his favorite.
I begged my fiancé to take him to the hospital, and when my mom chimed in in agreement, my fiancé stomped up the stairs to get changed. He came down and argued that we were overreacting and he was going to spend a lot of money just for them to send him home.
I told him I thought our son's pupils looked off when I shined a light and his demeanor was different, so I'd feel better knowing he's okay by professionals. He reluctantly put our son in the car, and we went to the ER.
After a couple of hours of monitoring and some examinations, they decided that he was okay but said they totally understood why we would bring him in. The whole ride back and as we got ready for bed, my fiancé went off on me about how he was going to have to pay the bill for nothing and how he has to get up early for work with no sleep.
He'll get 6 hours, which is more than I will since the ER doctor told us to monitor him for the next few days as symptoms could turn up later. He also decided to throw a jab about how I get to sleep in, which is completely false as we have a newborn that I'm up feeding every 2 hours, and both babies wake up about 10 minutes after he leaves.
I just kept reminding him that it was better to know he was okay rather than not being able to wake him up in the morning. I understand that ER bills can be expensive, but we have good insurance, and I still echo that it's better to be safe than sorry. But am I the a^#%ole for "strong-arming" him into going since everything turned out to be okay?
OP provided an update a day later:
Our son is back to his energetic self and doing well. Of course, he fell again when I whipped out a diaper to change him and ran from me, screaming with laughter. Luckily, he caught himself with his hands. I don't know what I'm going to do about this crazy kid.
People who think my fiancé is a red flag, and I can understand from that one scenario that he seemed to be, at the time, a big... d%^k, to say the least. I wanted to reiterate that he's actually a really great father. He's been stressing about money because of the new baby and working six days a week, beaten by the elements and doing heavy-duty labor.
He ended up taking off from work yesterday and apologized for the way he reacted and talked to me. He felt terrible about it and spent most of the day holding our son and being grateful that he was okay. I guess my words sunk in about a wait-and-see attitude might have led to our son not waking up in the morning.
He promised to no longer roughhouse with him anymore and gets shaken up whenever our son starts to run. I think my fiancé was a little traumatized that it was kind of his participation that led to our son's fall.
Here are the top comments:
blanketstatement5 says:
Can we all agree that the real a%^@ole in this situation is the broken and barbaric american healthcare system which would create a financial incentive to parents to not get their child medical care after an injury?
OP responded:
I do agree with you there. The staff was fantastic. It's the financial institution behind it all that pisses me off. My father couldn't afford to go to the ER for a severe migraine. Fastforward 2 years and it was an aggressive cancer that ended up spreading and ending his life. If he felt he could afford it, maybe they could've caught it in time the US Healthcare System is a POS.
chucktheninja says:
Perhaps it's time to do something about the slippery floors? At this rate, it's gonna happen again.
Jealous-Ad-8714 says:
If he’s prone to injuries there’s no shame in getting him a helmet. My nephew was also wild and ended up getting a concussion. He wore a helmet until he got a bit older.
WomanInQuestion says:
You might consider going to urgent care instead of the ER for some issues. It’s usually a cheaper co-pay. With an energetic, somewhat uncoordinated kiddo around, you’ll have plenty more accidents as he grows, but that’s totally normal.
In jr. high, I stubbed my toe on a concrete step, which broke and dislocated my big toe. That took surgery to fix. In high school, I broke my finger on another boy’s swim trunks while playing Chicken in swim class. Kids have weird accidents despite the best of care.
What do you think?