My son became suddenly ill when he was 14 days old. I stood there in the emergency department of the local hospital and watched my precious son as he lay on the gurney that seemed to swallow his tiny body.
We have been in the emergency room for nearly five hours. All the routine tests have come back negative. Bent over a clipboard, the doctor, the second we’ve seen in the last three days—the first explained the symptoms of our five-and-a-half month old son, Jonathan, as signs of teething—is filling out discharge instructions. Behind his back, the nurse twice mouths, “Don’t leave,” with decisive shakes of her head.