A Stomach Virus

On Friday, Jack came down with a bug of some sort. He was fine all day, playing and running like normal. At about 4:30 in the afternoon, he threw up and from there, it was all down hill. My mother-in-law was watching him that day and after he threw up the first time, he started running a fever. Then at 7:00 on their way home from a late visit, Jack threw up again in his carseat.

He went to bed almost immediately when he got home after a bottle of milk and a little baby Tylenol to bring his fever down. He slept for several hours just fine but around midnight while he was in bed with me, he started squirming, tossing and turning and trying to get comfortable. He kept trying to relieve his stomach pain by tooting but it just wasn't working. In bed, he started dry heaving and threw up just some clear liquid.

By the morning, he had thrown up a couple more times and wasn't able to keep any fluids down, not even water. After a call to his pediatrician, they suggested I take him to the children's emergency room at Emanuel because dehydration could become a concern.

After hurriedly packing Jack's diaper bag with extras like towels in case he puked in the car and a blanket and some snacks for me, I brushed my teeth, threw my dirty hair in a ponytail and got dressed. Thankfully my mother-in-law offered to come with me which is awesome because Jason was sleeping and had to move us back into our house (great timing huh?).

I got to the hospital in record time and the check-in was immediate. We didn't have to wait to get Jack back into a room. The nurse came in quickly and took his temperature (rectally, poor guy), got a blood pressure reading and a pulse. His temp was 101.8 which is pretty high for him. Not his highest fever ever but enough to make me know something was definitely wrong. He was given one of those little soft baby hospital gowns to put on.

The doctor came in and did an exam and his lungs sounded clear, his belly was making good noises and since he didn't have diarrhea, they were able to figure out it wasn't a few things. It wasn't appendicitis due to the good belly sounds. It wasn't food poisoning because of no diarrhea. It MIGHT be a UTI but they wouldn't know that unless they were to catheterize him and that was hopefully to be avoided unless his fever continued for a couple of days. She was pretty certain it was a stomach virus which is easily treated.

Another nurse came in the room and by this time Jack had enough. Everytime someone came in he would cry. This nurse made him cry even more when she gave him a Zofran and a rectal dose of Tylenol. We were told that if he could keep the Zofran down for about 30 minutes, they would start giving him small amounts of liquid over the course of an hour. If Jack threw up anymore, they would have to give him an IV of fluids. Of course, this scared me so I silently prayed that he wouldn't have to go through that. The nurse explained we would be there for a few hours and to make ourselves comfortable.

Jack was very tired so he mostly sat on my lap and snuggled while watching Disney. He dozed off and on as well. He was so warm, even in his little hospital gown. Poor little guy.

The nurse came back after a half hour with Jack's first dose of fluids. She had mixed Pedialyte with some grape juice and he was given 5.5 ml of that through a syringe. If he was able to keep that amount down, we should double it after 10 minutes. Over the course of 90 minutes, Jack got small amounts of his "juice" and at the end, he was up to 22 ml. When he was able to keep that down, he was rewarded with a popsicle. Because he had lost a lot of electrolytes and vitamins, a popsicle is good because it quickly gets his blood sugar back up.

After he ate his popsicle it was like I had a whole new child. He wanted down from my lap and explore his room. Once the nurse saw that we were told to go home, yay!

The rest of Saturday was spent nursing a sick kid who got very small amounts of food along with small amounts of liquid as to not upset his stomach. I tried following the BRAT diet as much as I could but since Jack is pretty picky, he had other things as well. Saltines, some pears, applesauce, toast and oatmeal was his diet for Saturday. Unfortunately, I had to go help at the house for a couple of hours but Nana took care of Jack. Between napping and watching "Mo Mo" (Elmo) he would quietly play with toys.

After staying up late - he literally would not go to sleep. It was like he was making up for being sick and all the down time. - he woke up bright and early on Sunday morning. 4:30 am came quickly and that was when I knew my little man was feeling much better.

We will never know what made Jack sick. None of our family is sick, no one at daycare has been sick, he hasn't come in to contact with any weird substance.......I will never know. I will definitely be more dilligent when it comes to wiping down the shopping cart and washing hands. That trip to the ER was enough to scare me into becoming the psycho germophobe.