April: A Rough Month for our family

Two years ago in April we entered the hospital with James for over a month. The following April my cousin's daughter was in ICU in Guam with the Whooping Cough. If I thought the month had some bad juju, Thursday sealed the deal. After a very usual morning of a pancake breakfast, James had a small throw up at 10:15am. I sighed a bit thinking bacterial overgrowth or whatever else is going on was rearing its ugly head. Again. But he kept running around and laughing with Eve. About 10 minutes later he complained of an upset tummy. We went to the potty where he pretty much pooped water and then threw up miserably. I was sitting on the floor of the bathroom with him just in case anything else happened, typing an email to UVA explaining our continued troubles and trying to figure things out while chatting with James about airplanes. All of a sudden, his eyes started to roll back in his head and he turned sheet white. I shook him awake and called 911. Then Tom. While I waited he tried to lose consciousness 4 times. Of all I've seen, this was terrifying! It would take a lot for me to call 911. I'm pretty self sufficient, but as I sat with my 9 mth old daughter playing in her safety corral 30 minutes away from the better hospital (with no cell reception for 20 of those minutes), it ended up being a really easy decision. When I told James doctors were coming he got very upset and consequently seemed a lot better and more lively. But while we waited TEN MINUTES for the ambulance to arrive, he started to get listless again and kept asking to sleep. I wasn't sure precisely what sort of sleep he was talking about so I just told him we had to wait to sleep.
While I carried him around the house looking out the window and trying to distract him I threw some baby food and extra diapers in my bag and sort of changed out of my pjs. I didn't, unfortunately, get a chance to go to the bathroom, which made for a really rough ambulance ride.
When the EMTs arrived, James got so upset again that he didn't seem so bad, and all his vitals were normal. They asked if I even wanted to have him be seen or if I just wanted to take him to my pediatrician. I'm thinking they thought I was overreacting a bit. But, yeah, I opted for a ride to the Fauquier Hospital. I wasn't too keen on trying to drive with 2 kids down a road with no cell service while one was thinking about passing out; silly me. So off we went: James sitting on a gurney, me next to him, and Eve mostly safely strapped onto a bench in her car seat. I had flip flops. Neither kid had shoes. This was after I herded the 3 dogs into the house and said goodbye to the goats. Nuff said.

Fast forward a bit. We get to the hospital and they draw blood and run an IV. They did a great job but it was horrible, just horrible. Eventually he calmed down and fell asleep in my lap. Tom took eve for a drive to sleep and to get some food. We're freaking pros.

The blood work showed what we already knew. He was severely dehydrated. How he got that way so fast or why he got sick in the first place, I have no idea. But after some Zofran (anti nausea) and 2 fluid boluses, he was looking much better. The nurse practitioner was talking about sending us home which sort of sounded great and sort of mostly terrified us. You get a lot of funny looks when you resist leaving the hospital. And when she mentioned that insurance wouldn't clear keeping him without reason, we kind of laughed at her. I mean, I get it. But come on. It's pretty much cliche. Actually Tom really laughed at her. She didn't laugh. I'm not sure we can go back there.

But we did wait until James had eaten some crackers and held them down and then went home with the understanding as a family that if anything went wrong we would drive straight to UVA. I'd been in continued email contact with the GI office so I knew they'd be ready for us.

Fortunately, he's pretty much fine. Which is almost more mystifying, is it not? We stuck with clear liquids and some crackers and bread yesterday and are adding more foods back in today and tomorrow. And we are pushing the pedialyte hard. But he's great and happy and wild. And we have no idea. Again.



So keep him in your prayers if you can!



He's come a long way but we're not there yet!