We were sitting in the ER at Children's Hospital. It was the tail end of an exhausting day. Our 3-year-old daughter had started throwing up at 4:30 a.m. and couldn't keep anything down all day—not even water. Our pediatrician gave a lot of advice over the phone. "Give her one ounce of fluid every 10 minutes." But nothing would stay down. By evening, a fever set in. Our pediatrician told us: "Get her to a hospital now. I'll call ahead."

She recommended CHOP, which would have been our first pick, too. Our daughter needed spinal surgery when she was 10 weeks old, and that nightmare was helped considerably by the staff there. Nobody wants to take their kid to the hospital, but if you have to, CHOP—consistently voted among the top children's hospitals in the country—is the place you want.

We drove to University City. I sat in the backseat with my daughter, towel in hand, in case she became sick again. The area around CHOP is all concrete slabs and chain link; across the street is the giant pit that used to be the Civic Center. Emergency parking was down a winding spiral ramp. I carried my daughter to the elevator.

Normally, she would have been trying to honk my nose. Or feeling my cheeks and saying, "Daddy, you really need to shave." Instead, she just rested her head on my shoulder, silent.

It is possible to carry someone and still feel completely helpless.

We walked up through the lobby and into the ER, which was also under construction. The waiting room was packed. A few kids looked sick. One teenaged girl was hunched over, clutching her stomach, moaning. Her parents took turns rubbing her back, whispering in her ear.

But the majority of the kids in the ER looked as if they could have been outside playing. One little girl kept darting into the triage area. Another boy chased her. Others fought over toys. Parents made runs to the McDonald's down the hall and across the lobby, and brought back Happy Meals and Cokes. How sick can you be if you're eating a cheeseburger and fries, laughing and trying to kill your brother?

If you don't have insurance, you go to the ER. They have to take care of you. No matter how small the ailment.

You can't be angry about someone not having health insurance, can you?

The woman at the registration desk handed us a vibrating beeper and told us to wait. By 8 p.m., we were in triage. My daughter was given a Tylenol for the fever, and the nurse suggested feeding her sips of Gatorade or Pedialyte from the fridge in the waiting room.

We chose the lemon-lime Gatorade. (You ever drink Pedialyte? It's nasty.)

Two hours crawled by. The ER was jammed. We watched kids chase each other. Eat fries. Scream. Scream very loudly. Run some more.

Our daughter tried to sleep in my wife's lap.

And then around 10 p.m., she threw up.

Mostly on herself. Some on my wife's shirt. Some on my arm.

Nobody helped.

The woman at registration even looked put out when I asked her for a few paper towels, maybe a plastic bag. We cleaned up as best you can in a waiting room.

A nurse told us there were still two people ahead of us.

Just before midnight, we were finally taken back to an exam room, where we were told to give our daughter a small sip of Pedialyte every 10 minutes. Familiar advice.

An hour passed. Our daughter started shivering. There were no blankets. We wrapped her in the towel we'd brought from home.

I asked if it was always this busy. The nurse raised his eyebrows. "Parents are supposed to be here with sick kids," he said, "and they're here eating McDonald's. I'll never understand why they put that in here."

By 3:30 a.m., we headed home with a cup of orange Pedialyte and instructions to squeeze a plastic syringe full of the liquid into our daughter's mouth every 10 minutes. An IV treatment had been offered, but it had been five hours since she'd last been sick. The doctor gave us the choice. We chose home.

After all, neither of us were in the mood for a Big Mac.