Vomitus virusus

Saturday evening as I was walking out of a lovely baby shower, Scott called me: "Donovan's sick; he threw up." Scott put him to bed, he slept decently, considering, but woke up the next morning throwing up again. Just a few times, then stopped and seemed in pretty decent spirits, so I left him with Scott again while I took the girls to Sunday School and stayed for a parent education session, then to Eliana's soccer year-end party, then on to a 7th birthday party for a dear friend's daughter (who happens to be one of Eliana's favorite people). I checked in with Scott a few times, and he said Donovan was doing much better. After about 7 hours out, I was very happy to go home and nurse my boy, who was also very happy to see me.

We sat on the couch, nursed, and just as I said, "Do you want the other side?" he nodded, latched off, and threw up all over me. Soaked me down to the skivvies. It was very clear that Scott had been feeding him normal food far beyond the BRATY diet. Ew.

The girls and I needed dinner and there was nothing reasonable in the house, so I sent Scott to the store to bring home sandwiches and some coconut water for the boy. He'd had most of the two bottles of pedialyte that were in the house, and he loooves coconut water. (The triple O vowel is a very special vowel that you may not have been taught in school.) Right before he left, D threw up again, but fortunately this time I had a towel handy.

While Scott was out, D cried, and cried. I started worrying. Now he had a low fever, where there had been none before. He said, "Pee. Pee." when there was no pee, and said, "Ow," pointing to his crotch and belly. It was past urgent care hours on a Sunday, so I did what any reasonable parent who doesn't want to spend $1000+ clogging up the ER unnecessarily would do. (Did I mention we have a $6000 per person insurance deductible? Did I mention that as of December 1 it will only be $250?) I called my inside help - Dr. Aunt Katie, my sister in law, my phone triage doc. She told me what would warrant an immediate trip to the ER and I decided to stay home, as those symptoms weren't quite presenting.

D had another decent night. In the morning, he either nursed or cried. He still made eye contact with me and did communicate a little bit, so this was looking a lot better than when I rushed Eliana to the hospital, but it was definitely time to see the doc. I got an appt with a ped we hadn't seen before (ours is out on medical leave!?), and she was great. She was worried about him, said he was on the verge of needing to go to the ER to get hydrated. She gave us until 1:30 for him to perk up or she wanted us to go to the ER. She also sent us home with a stick-on pee collecting bag (oh fun memories from E's hospitalization). The ped said to push pedialyte bigtime and to feed him. He did take some yogurt and initially drank about half a container of pedialyte, but by 11 he stopped eating and drinking altogether. He only wanted to nurse, but he was not swallowing, so I know he wasn't transferring milk. When I realized that nothing was going in and therefore nothing was going to help him get better, I decided it was time to go to the ER.

Right then, though, he fell asleep, and I thought, hmmm, maybe a rest will help. I had about an hour until our 1:30 deadline and thought that would be a good amount of sleep. At 1, the nurse from the ped's office called to check in and agreed that it was time to go to the ER, so I woke him up and we headed over.

They would not let me nurse him until after taking his temperature. OK wait wait wait. I totally get how if you are going to have your temperature taken orally, and you have something cold or hot to drink, that it would mess with the temperature reading. But we're talking 98.6 degree boob that is not transferring milk, and then they took his temperature rectally. Now, obviously, I could've popped the boob in no matter what they said, but when your kid is that sick, hoop-jumping in order to get the treatment you need is just kind of what you do. At that point it is not about figuring out that this might be a stupid idea - this thought process didn't happen until I was actually walking out of the ER after it was all over. So, people who know more about physiology and illness and hospital procedures than I do, (Dr. Aunt Katie?) if there was a good reason for me and the whole ER to have to listen to him screaming, please let me know what it was. Because from where I'm sitting, it seems like a hospital protocol lost in translation and being enforced when it didn't actually pertain to our situation.

Anyway, cry cry cry because I'm not nursing him, and as I've established, it was either one or the other all day (it was now about 2pm). The nurse was trying to get a pulse ox on him and it wasn't working, and when I said for the third time since meeting her, "if you just take his temp and let me nurse him he'll hold still," she finally switched to taking his temp. Hold down strong screaming toddler event #1.

Nurse nurse nurse. Pulse ox on the ear, he pulled it off, I held his arms, no tears because we're nursing, it goes back on, success. Nurse nurse nurse.

Two nurses came in to set up for IV placement, with a blood draw, and a catheterization to rule out bladder infection. They asked me to lay him flat for the IV placement, and I sang into his ear while the nurse put a tourniquet on his arm and he cried. I laid my body across his legs, held the arm the nurses weren't using, and felt just a little bit thankful that I had been pregnant and unable to be in the room for Eliana's x-rays during her hospitalization, then guilty, then thankful that she had been so out of it while she had her IV's placed that she didn't cry or even show any signs of registering it, then guiltier. The nurse remarked how strong he was. Thankful that he was not in bad shape like Eliana had been. Hold down strong screaming toddler event #2.

After the IV was placed, the blood was drawn from it, and as they went to finish taping and put on a splint to keep his arm straight (which didn't work), I let go of him, leaned over the table with my shirt up, and let him nurse. The nurses were amazed. Wonder if they'd ever seen a nursing two year old before, let alone a mother willing to contort herself for the sake of ne. A bit more time passed and they weren't going for the catheter, so I asked if I could sit back down with him as, contortionist nursing or no, that would be more comfortable. They said they were going to wait for some of the fluids to go in, so I settled in. Nurse nurse nurse. He finally fell asleep.

Just in time for the nurse to come in for the catheterization. Hold down strong screaming toddler event #3.

Over fast, back to nursing. In and out of sleep. Two boluses of fluid. All tests back normal. Doc said we could go home. The nurses came in to take out the IV, and he woke up a new boy. Talked to me about the clocks on the wall, about wanting the splint off, about going home and seeing Kiki and Lala. On our way out of the ER, he said, "Moon up," and on the drive to pick up his sisters from our friend Sharon aka angel's house, he sang the Laurie Berkner Band's "Moon, moon, moon." All I could say was, "Oh, I missed you so much. It's so nice to see you."

Overall, we were treated very well. This is my second ER experience at ValleyCare and the nurses and doctors have been respectful and have provided an appropriate level of care each time.

All day I thought about how lucky we are to live in a place with clean running water, with pedialyte and coconut water available every mile, with IV fluids available. In other places, dehydration kills toddlers regularly. We are so lucky.