ER Visit

Caitlin woke up this morning with a fever, and vomited on me just before I put her down to change her. Great start to the day.

So my mom came down to help me. I gave her the heads up last night that Caitlin went to bed with a fever; she mentioned that dad had a meeting downtown and she could be dropped off at my place for the day; I promptly took her up on the offer to help me look after a sick Mike, a sick Caitlin, and Adam. She was pretty much on Adam patrol though while I tended to the other two. He tried green beans today, and yep, he loved them!

I remembered from a previous call to Telehealth that after a child throws up, you're not supposed to introduce liquids until 4 hours, dispensing 1 tbsp of water every 15 minutes, doubling this and introducing solids at the 8 hour mark. So I did just that. After the 4 hours had passed, I started giving her tablespoons of water, fairly spaced apart just to be safe. She seemed to be doing okay (other then the fact she was begging for food and water), so we moved onto freezies and popsicles. However, after the second or third popsicle, she tossed her cookies again, and it was pretty much all the water she had taken in. So we had to start the clock all over again. But with her begging for fluid and no wet diaper after 8 hours, I called Telehealth to find out what I should do.

Sure enough, I had made a mistake. You're supposed to introduce fluids immediately after vomiting, 1 tbsp every 5 minutes to replenish the lost liquid, and doubling this after the 4 hours mark. Solids at 8 hours. So pretty much I had denied Caitlin fluids today and she was on the dehydration track. I felt like a terrible mom. A simple mistake was leading us down a bad path; Telehealth said I need to start pumping her full of fluids and seek medical attention if no pee after 12 hours.

With her still not keeping anything down, and no wet diaper at the 14 hour mark, I took her to the ER at 9:30pm tonight.

They admitted us immediately and put us into the Acute side for monitoring. We of course had to wait for a bit for the doctor and it was really late. Well past her bedtime, but at least we had our own room and bed where she could lie down.

She fell asleep because she was zonked from fever and everything else.

When the doctor came in to check her, he rammed a Popsicle stick and strep test swab down her throat while she was still half awake and scared her half to death. I tried calming her while he held her down to check her other vitals, and this got her completely wound up. You'd think a doctor, dealing with small children, would have a better bedside manner in these types of situations. Anyway, he wanted to start her on an IV and I asked as a last ditch effort (knowing that would be even more traumatic) to try some Pedialyte. He gave me one hour to get a wet diaper from her.

The nurses were so sweet and I attribute her drinking to them. They brought ice chips, apple juice and came and sat and offered words of encouragement and books to a very sick, tired and unwilling patient. After 19 hours of no wet diaper – 4.5 hours of that spent at the hospital – Caitlin threw up all the Pedialyte, but she finally peed, albeit tiny. And she did it just in the nick of time; the doctor came in just as I finished changing her diaper to start her on the IV line. He said that even though she threw up what looked like almost everything she drank, something's getting through and she's absorbing some fluid. That was the best thing I could have heard. We got our discharge at 2am, and I came home with a tired little girl.

We'll find out in a few days if it is strep. I hope it is because I'll at least know the cause the mystery plague that has taken down two of our family members.