Gastro-YUCK!!

Mattie told me Monday night after his bath that he had a "big cough". I put him to bed thinking nothing of it, and realized just what he meant an hour later as he was throwing up all over his pillow. He said "see! BIG COUGHS!" we spent all night trying to catch each bout with a bucket.

I had spent all day Monday cleaning out my parents garage and moving furniture so I took a muscle relaxant for my back after I'd gotten the kids to sleep. Taylor had gone to bed so I was taking care of the baby. Around 1 am I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer and woke Taylor up to take over the vomit patrol.. when I came up to check on them a few hours later I have to take this moment to tell you that Taylor does NOT have the whole grab the bucket and shove it under the kids mouth thing down., almost every article of clothing and bedding had vomit on them.... ugh..

so Tuesday was more of the same, he wasn't keeping anything down and started a low grade fever.

Wednesday when I got home from work, he was barely moving. Taylor said that when he'd tried to shower him off after his 4th bout of vomit and diarrhea he couldn't even stand up. He slept but while he slept he whimpered and called out "mamma" every few minutes. He looked awful and he hadn't had a wet diaper for over 20 hours.

Around 6:30 I decided to take him to the hospital. When we walked in I sighed heavily. It was PACKED! I didn't think it would be so crammed considering respiratory season is over. We checked in and they flagged him as "yellow" which I'm assuming does Not mean urgent. Trauma's kept coming in and they would move Matties chart down. I watched as people waited and got called back who had been there far less time than we had. I tried to be patient telling myself that I didn't know what this or that child was being seen for etc, but I was getting really frustrated. My arms where exhausted from holding his limp little body, and he cried and whimpered when he wasn't sleeping. Taylor came after we'd been sitting in the waiting room for about 3 hours. He went to the desk to inquire our turn and they told him "oh, wow, yes, you have been here longer than anyone in here!" then she told the clerk that she was taking us back. It took her a few minutes to find his chart at the bottom of the pile!

The ER was so packed that we got placed in the daytime sedation room which is just a bunch of gurneys in the same room with curtains around them. Babies were crying all over the place and we listened to the baby next to us scream for 20 minutes while they placed an IV. Mattie was begging us to turn the light off but we couldn't because there was only one light switch for the whole room. He was so sick he just lied on the gurney and waited. Id given him a few sips of water while we'd been waiting and he lost it there all over me.

The Dr saw us pretty quickly and next thing we knew he was getting an IV too. I was SO grateful that they got his in the first try. He was so cute about it, the med student that placed it asked him"are you ready for a poke?" and he said in his quiet little voice "yes". He was pretty mad about the arm board they put on him to wrap up with his IV. he kept saying "want it off!" He was so mad after that he pulled his blanket up over his face and went to sleep. The nurse thought it was pretty cute of him.

They drew labs and gave him lots of fluids.

An hour or so later the Dr came back and told us that because of his lab results she was going to go ahead and admit us for the night. His glucose was extremely low and they wanted to make sure that went up after they gave him more fluids with dextrose. There was something else too but I didn't know what it meant and can't remember the name of it..

Before we left the ER he had a Huge smelly mess for us to clean up. It smelled like rotavirus to me!

It was about 1:15 in the morning when we finally got to our room. Then another 30 more minutes for them to take his vitals and get him settled in. They'd made a cot out for me which I thought was very nice.

We had a baby for a room mate and through out the night Mathew and the little one took turns crying. I Think I got about 2 hours of sleep which I welcomed gratefully.

I spent most of the time rubbing his little legs and back and when I'd stop he'd whine "mamma" for me to keep rubbing. Morning came and He didn't even watch his favorite show when it came on (little Einsteins). The Dr came in and looked at him and said that at the very least we'd be a late discharge that day. He still wasn't peeing (even with all the fluid they were loading him up with)or drinking. They gave him another large bolus of fluid and we worked hard to get him to drink small but frequent sips of Gatorade.

About a half hour after his bolus he had the biggest gush of Toxic smelling fluid come out of him I'v ever seen. It was like he'd just pooped out the rest of the virus in one blow because all of the sudden he was talking again, and perking up. I laughed while the nurse and I cleaned him up. Because it was such an incredible mess, and because I was so glad he felt better.

The Dr came in around 2 and saw that he'd improved. He was still weak only sitting up for short periods of time, but he was at least talking and keeping his eyes open enough to play with some cars that the child life crew had brought him. The Dr contemplated for a moment and finally asked if I felt alright taking him home.. I was seeing my own bed in my mind and told him I thought we'd be fine.

I was very lucky to have such good Friends from my own unit bring me breakfast (Randi)and coffee (Jamie) since I couldn't leave Mattie at all. My Nurse manager came down to check on us and so did my friend Katie.. Randi even let me take some pictures of him with her camera. I'll post them when I see her next. It was a long night but I'm so glad we're home and that he's doing so much better.