hospital stay

So much has happened in just the few days since I last posted. Last weekend Allie had been sick with a GI bug, but seemed to be getting better on Monday. In fact Monday evening she was outside with us enjoying the warm weather and playing with Asher. Tuesday morning she was extremely thirsty and having diarrhea every 30 minutes or so. Then, the vomiting started about 11 am. She hadn't vomited since Saturday night, and I knew something was not right. She continued to vomit all that she was taking in, and even though I had called for an appointment at the ped's office for 4:30 pm I was close to taking her to the ER. Her eyes were sunken in her head and had black circles underneath. I got Ash off the school bus and we headed straight to the doctor. John was on call that day and met us in the waiting area. As soon as the ped saw her he was like, whoa she is as dry as a chip - go directly to the ER and be admitted (it was after 5 pm so ER is how you get admitted then). She actually was looking a touch better I thought and had kept 12 ounces of juice down for over an hour. I was even thinking maybe I had overreacted (I hadn't!!!!). Oh, she weighed in at only 24 pounds. At her 2 year checkup the first of February she was 27 pounds. The doc also checked Asher's lungs while we were there to avoid having to come back Thur morning for his re-check with the pneumonia. They were completely clear! He said we didn't have to do another chest x-ray unless we wanted it for our peace of mind, but we were OK with not having it done. Ash will stay on his antibiotic for another week to finish his 14 day course. Oh, and he checked Allie's ears and her right ear was completely healed. We stopped the antibiotic, although it didn't cause the gasto issues it certainly wasn't helping the doc said. So we head to the ER, and as we passed through the 3rd floor area (shortcut John knew coming from the attached Medical Offices) we saw the nurse manager, John had given her a head's up earlier that Allie would probably be admitted so when she saw him with us, she knew! She told him she had our room all ready when we got done in the ER. We hadn't been in the ER 2 minutes and Allie vomited everywhere. It was packed in there, standing room only, but thankfully she didn't hit anybody with it, came close though! An old man in a wheelchair missed it by an inch and you should have seen the look on his face. Allie looked at the huge puddle on the floor and said, UH OH! in this sweet little voice and people were like, Awww poor little thing! The admit clerk already had her on the computer as a direct admit so I signed a few papers and we were on our way back to the 3rd floor. Our hospital is very small, around 50 beds (including OB), and there are only a couple of private rooms for Med Surg that are actually Hospice Rooms. The census was high and most rooms were filled, and many had 2 patients in them. The nurse told John we were getting the private Hospice Room and I was sooooo very grateful!!!!!!! To have a private room in the midst of that was such a blessing!!! John actually started Allie's IV. I know I am biased but he really is excellent at what he does, and he had different type of needles that anesthesia uses, and he did not want her stuck more than the one time. The nurses were OK with it if he was. It was nerve-wracking for Mama and Allie was crying (and so was Asher, he was so scared for Allie!) but John got it first try! He is amazing! He had to draw a half syringe of blood first, then hook up the IV. She was extremely dehydrated, her bloodwork numbers came back and the one for hydration was 16 and it is supposed to be like 24. I explained to both kids how the tube carries medicine into Allie's arm, to make her better. The kids understand "medicine", just hadn't seen this way of getting it into the body! So she had an IV bolus of 200cc fluid over the next couple of hours, when it was almost empty they hung a 50cc bag of Phenergan to stop the vomiting, as she had thrown up again. The Phenergan did the trick and stopped that, as well as knocked Allie out with its sleepiness effects! John was on call, and around 11 pm he headed downstairs to his call room to sleep. Asher stayed overnight on the pull out sofa in Allie's room and I slept in the hospital bed with Allie. Or should I say tried to sleep. It felt like torture, I would get woken up just as I entered into that deep cycle of sleep, about every hour or so. I know they had to check on her, and I wasn't upset by that, it's just that WOW you really CAN'T get any rest in a hospital!!! Allie did alright throughout the night, she did have a diarrhea but no more throwing up. Wednesday morning came and we decided to keep Asher out of school since he had gotten less than 8 hours of sleep and he was still pretty concerned with Allie. We watched TV and did homework and colored, Allie stayed in the bed content until around 10 or so. Our friend Cathy came by with goodie bags for the kids and played games, walked the halls and was a great distraction for the kiddos! They love her. She also had brought me a much needed latte. Thanks Cathy! :) Allie couldn't go but 2 feet from the IV pole without the tubing pulling. She would stop and say, "Allie stuck! Stuck!" It was so cute. She wanted to be on the move and by golly she was stuck in that spot! Allie had been favoring the arm with the IV, saying it "hurt". One of the nurses re-wrapped it Wednesday morning as it had gotten a bit kinked in the crook of her arm and the pump kept alarming saying "occlusion" so she had to have an arm board so her elbow wouldn't bend. The nurse covered the wrapping in hot pink and I made a big deal out of it, saying how special it was and it was pretty pink princess. That got her attention, and she was saying "princess!" Cathy showed her how to color on it like a cast and Allie thought that was really cool. When the doctor checked on Allie around 12:15, she had just eaten a touch of lunch and we wanted to keep an eye on her to make sure she kept it down. He said he would come back around 3 pm. We all laid down to rest. Yeah right! I think we were interrupted 4 times in the first 10 minutes. I gave up on sleeping! Thankfully Allie did take an hour and a half nap. During that time John finished up his cases and kicked back on the recliner for a short snooze, Ash watched Star Wars with the volume turned off and I read a scrapbook magazine. Some of John's co-workers came to check on us, and then of course the nurses doing their thing and then the housekeeper and nutrition services with a menu, etc, etc. When the doc came back around 3 pm, Allie had had 2 more diarrhea diapers since lunch but thankfully had not thrown up. He said he would see us later in the evening, we couldn't go home quite yet. Meanwhile her IV fluid was continuous at 70cc per hour, which was about 25cc higher than a "maintenance" dose. She was looking a lot better although her color was still not right. She was playing, mostly with her new balloon. During one of her and Cathy's hallway walks, she saw a family getting on the elevator with balloons, leaving OB. Allie pointed and said, "Balloon!" and one of the family members asked her, would she like a balloon? And she of course said YES and he handed her one of theirs! I thought that was so kind. It says CONGRATS but I don't believe she cares about that! lol I headed home around 3:45 pm to take care of the animals and get a few more things we needed as we thought we would probably be staying the night again. When I got back at 5:30 pm with dinner, she had perked up and John had actually gotten her to eat an entire dinner roll and half a cup of juice, and she kept it down. She did have a couple more diarrhea diapers but when the doctor came back around 7:30 pm she was wanting to be down and playing, and saying "go bye -bye!" and eating a popsicle, drinking, and basically acting like herself. Her fluid intake was positive 100cc (they had been measuring her diapers). Over the last 25 hours she had close to 2 liters of fluid through her IV. The doc said it was up to us, if we felt OK taking her home then we could take her home, if we wanted to stay then we could stay. John said, "Let's go home." I agreed. By this point Allie was literally jumping up and down and playing and screeching and the doctor said, "She's gonna rip that IV out with how active she is!" When I came home to take care of animals and update everyone on the computer, I had grabbed my camera to take back with me. I was torn about taking pics, I tend to not want to document the harder, ugly things in life. But then I thought, this is life. Good and bad. And I want this time documented. Which is one reason this post is so long! I use this blog not only to record our life, but when I scrapbook I refer to it for the journaling on my layouts. OK, here's some pics! Showing off her pink princess arm. Waiting on the discharge papers, Mama was packing up which is why the bed is a mess! Getting the IV taken out. There was no bruising on her arm whatsoever! Whew! So today is Friday. TGIF. Seriously. What a rough week we have had. This morning when I woke Ash up for school, he rolled over and said, "I didn't get any sleep last night!" and I rubbed his back and said I knew the feeling. That we had to get through today though and then both he and daddy are on vacation all next week! Yeah! At this point we are not planning on doing much, but we will see how we feel next week. The kids do have a dentist appointment on Monday that we really need to NOT miss. They haven't had their teeth cleaned and checked in over a year, the appointment has been rescheduled 3 or 4 times. We are pretty sure what Allie had was Rotavirus. The doc said it was most likely that. I think she picked it up when we went to the doctor for Asher's pneumonia last Wed/Thur. The incubation period definitely fits. Here's hoping for an uneventful weekend! :)