Adventures in parenting...at the hospital

It all started Tuesday night, March 10. Samantha started throwing up at about 8pm, and kept on all night long...at least every 45 minutes other than a break from 3 to 6 am, all the way through 9:15 a.m. on Wednesday. She even threw up as I was putting her in her car seat to go to the doctor's office. Dr. Ramirez said that she had a stomach flu that is going around and to expect the diarrhea to start within the next day or so. She also said that Samantha needed to stay home for 3 days, so I called in sick for the rest of the week.

Dr. Ramirez was right. The diarrhea did start that afternoon, but it didn't get bad until Friday. She continued vomitting, but only once per day on Thursday and Friday. However, we were changing her diaper and pajamas constantly on Friday because the diarrhea was so bad. At about 8:30 Friday evening, we noticed that she hardly produced any tears when she was crying, so Brent called the nurse line that we have through the insurance company. The nurse said that Samantha did need to be seen, and recommended going to an urgent care center. So we did. We chose the one that was closest to our house and got there at about 9:30p.m. Once we saw the doctor, she said that it appeared that Samantha had mild dehyrdration but that it could quickly become severe. They did not have the equipment to do a pediatric IV, so she told us that we needed to go to the ER.

That was about 10:30pm, and we went straight from the urgent care clinic to the Plano Presbyterian ER. Samantha fell asleep on the way, but woke up as soon as we walked into the lobby. We got back to a room and waited a while to see the doctor, and Samantha finally fell asleep again. Not too long after that, the doctor came in, so she had to wake up one more time to be examined by the doctor and have her IV put in. We had to wait for about an hour after that to get the result of her bloodwork. Thankfully she fell asleep while we waited. The doctor came in at about 1:30a.m. and told us that her bloodwork showed severe dehyrdation and that her bicarbonate level was low enough that she had to be admitted to the hospital. She kept on sleeping as we went up to her hospital room, but woke up when we transferred her from the ER gurney to the crib in her room at 2:20a.m. Oh well...she would have woken up a few minutes later when the nurses had to examine her, take her vitals and check her IV. They found a problem with her IV. The needle had somehow punctured the side of the catheter, so they had to take it out and put a new one in. That most definitely upset Samantha.

Everything was finally done at about 3a.m., and I began the task of trying to calm her down and get her to sleep. She wasn't happy, though. She screamed from 3 until 5. Not just crying, but actually screaming. It was horrible. Her voice is still hoarse today as a result of all the screaming she did. I could not comfort her at all. I was holding her and trying to calm her, but she kept pushing away from me and arching her back, refusing to be comforted. It was as if she didn't even know who I was. I started crying several times myself. Brent had gone home to get some sleep, and he was going to be coming back later to let me go home and sleep. I was just about to the point of calling him and saying that I needed him to come back now, when she finally fell asleep.

She slept until 6:30a.m. After that, she alternated sleeping and crying for most of the day. Thankfully she didn't scream and act like she didn't know me anymore. I'm not sure I could have handled that again. In fact, she was very clingy and wanted to be held all the time. On Saturday, she still looked awful. She didn't feel too great, either. Her face was very puffy, her eyes were just slits in her face, and she was super lethargic and still whimpering and crying. She ate a cup of Jello, but then refused to eat anything else and refused to drink anything at all. It probably didn't help much that she was on a clear liquid diet, so there really wasn't anything that she could attempt to feed herself.

The doctor came to see her that afternoon and said that we could be dealing with some other things since the IV fluids hadn't perked her up, and he ordered some tests. One of them required getting a stool sample, which we still did not manage to get by Sunday at lunchtime. At least she was over the diarrhea. The doctor also said that we didn't need to worry about her not drinking yet, that at some point hunger and thirst would win out over remembering the stomach cramping and vomitting, and in the meantime, the IV was giving her all she needed to stay hydrated. I asked if she could change to having crackers or something that she could feed herself and he said yes. That we could advance her diet as tolerated. Which meant we would start out giving her bland things like cheerios and bread, and then if she did well we could keep on moving to other foods. Samantha was very happy to have Cheerios and a banana for dinner that night, and we even got her to eat a little bit of other stuff as well.

She still wasn't drinking, though. And if we tried to push it, she got very angry with us. She slept a lot better that night, even sleeping through one or two of the times that the nurse came to check her IV. Even the times that she woke up, though, she went back to sleep quickly.

On Sunday morning she ate a huge breakfast! She had scrambled eggs, half a banana, Cheerios, a little bit of bagel and some yogurt. She still refused to drink anything, though. And we had everything out...apple juice, grape juice, pedialyte, formula and water. All in different containers...sippy cups, regular cups with straws, and a bottle. Nothing worked, though. The doctor came by midmorning and said that she could be discharged that afternoon...IF we were comfortable with her drinking. He went ahead and wrote the discharge orders, but made it conditional. If she still wouldn't drink anything, she would stay another night. He also decided to lower the amount of her IV fluids so that she would be more likely to get thirsty.

Right around lunchtime, I went home for the first time since we left Friday night and Brent stayed with Samantha. When I came back, I brought her formula from home and another sippy cup and bottle. She still refused it. I said something about the fish to Brent and Samantha heard me and kept saying "ishy" and pointed to the door each time. So we took a walk to the fish tank, and I decided to take her cup with us. We sat on the floor by the fish tank and I put her cup on the floor beside us. She FINALLY decided to pick up her cup and drink. She didn't drink a lot, only about an ounce, but she did pick it up and drink several times, so we decided that she would be OK and told the nurse that we were ready to go home. Yeah!!!

We got home at about 2pm, and within 30 minutes, she had a huge poopy diaper. It figures! Oh well, the doctor said that since she was over the vomitting and diarrhea, getting the stool sample didn't matter any more anyway.

Then during her nap, she started having lots of diarrhea again. We were definitely worried. Then she threw up. The she had another diarrhea episode, but it was smaller. Then nothing else happened other than reflux issues. I kept waking up all night to check on her, but she slept fine and didn't have any other problems. She woke up doing great on Monday morning and went to her babysitter where she had a great day. I guess that it really is all over now. Wheeeew!

Here are a few pictures of her hospital stay:

Sleeping in her crib with her IV line coming over the rail. She didn't have very much room to move around at all since they had to keep the line short enough that she couldn't get tangled in it. It was definitely tricky getting her into a good position in the crib.

A close up of her sleeping in the crib. I'm almost glad she kept her lambie in front of her face while she was sleeping. She really did look bad, and I would kind of like to forget about that.

Sitting on Daddy's lap on Sunday morning. She was still lethargic and clingy, but she was definitely much improved and looking more like her normal self.

Playing with the music table after getting her IV out. She was almost completely back to normal at this point :)

Even babies wear hospital gowns in the hospital...and their hineys stick out of the gowns a lot...see the diaper poking out the back. At least it is cute on a baby :)!