Scary Saturday

We had a trip via ambulance to the ER on Saturday morning and ended up staying the weekend!  Audrey and I battled a stomach bug last week and while I recovered within 24 hours, she struggled with it all week.  Saturday morning when I answered her call from her bedroom at 6 am I found her almost unresponsive in her bed.  She was limp.  Her eyes were rolling back in her head and she was pretty incoherent.  We weren't sure what was happening but knew we needed help.  The paramedics arrived and suspected she was probably severely dehydrated.  Her blood sugar level was very low as she hadn't had an appetite all week.  They decided to take her by ambulance to the ER and it was beyond difficult to watch them strap her car seat to the gurney.  She started to perk up a bit in the ambulance but was extremely lethargic again when we arrived at the ER.

We ended up staying in the ER for 8 hours until they transferred her upstairs to pediatrics.  She captured the heart of the EMT who had come to our house that morning because he kept checking in with her in our ER room as he came and went on calls from the hospital throughout the day.  Such a reassurance he was on an otherwise very scary day.

Corey had followed the ambulance by car and  joined us in the ER but then started suffering from a horrible headache and nausea and had to go back home.  So he sent Nana as his replacement for support.  Well, while Nana waited with us in the ER room, she was suddenly stricken with this awful stomach virus and started vomiting.  I'm. Not. Kidding.  Corey had to drive back to the hospital on the verge of vomiting himself to collect poor, sick Nana. 

 That left me and our lethargic little sick Audrey who had to endure 3 pokes in her arms and wrist until they found a vein that cooperated for a blood draw and an IV put into her sweet little chubby foot. She was hysterical. I was hysterical. It was so hard to watch her go through it all.

The pediatric floor was actually a relief after the day in the ER. Much more comfortable and staff trained specifically to work with children. They didn't attempt any sort of test without bribing her with a Popsicle first. We stayed in that hospital room (basically quarantined because she had a stomach virus) until Monday morning when she could hold down her sparse meals and keep herself hydrated without the IV. For those two days we watched a lot of Dora, played with the stuffed animals Corey brought from home when he started to feel better, ate Popsicles and watched some more Dora. We shared a hospital bed for the first time since she was 2 days old and did a lot of looking out the window and texting worried family and friends.

 On Sunday, the IV was disconnected but the port in her foot remained,

along with the little bootie they created to stabilize it. 

She would hobble around the room on the bootie when she needed to get out of bed. 

I was just thankful she wanted to get out of bed. 

For a day and a half she had no interest in leaving her bed. 

 Two days of bed = some serious bed head!

 

Back at home, Nana started feeling better, too, but then Natalie was stricken. So, Corey and Nana had their hands full at home. This bug is evil, that's for sure. Talk about striking a family while they're down!!

I've never been so happy to walk outside into windy sunshine before in my life as I was when we left that hospital on Monday.  They had these race car discharge carts for the kids.  And the pediatric floor was a long way from our car which was still parked in front of the ER entrance.  So, Audrey got to drive this cool cart all the way through the hospital on our way out. 

A fun way to end a not so fun weekend.