Jillian's first ER experience

As some of you may know, Belinda and I have spent the last two evenings in the ER with our daughter, Jillian. She woke up, 5am, Wednesday morning, vomiting. Good thing I happened to have a bucket on hand. All day, nothing would stay down in her stomach, not even the smallest amount of water. Pretty soon, the nausea was joined by it's good friend, diarrhea. Good thing we happened to have some leftover pullups that still fit her. We kept trying to keep her hydrated, but to no avail, everything would just come back up or keep going down. If you've met Jillie, then you know that she's boisterous, talkative, and a veritable ball of energy. Not anymore. Listless and pallid, she just layed on the couch with her glassy eyes glued to the middle distance like a zombie that had given up on the after-life. We decided it was time for the professionals to take a look at her. I stayed home with little brother Gavin while Mommy and Tia took big sis to Saint Vincents pediatric ER. The doc checked her out, and decided it was time for intravenous fluids. Unfortunately, she was so dehydrated that the veins in her arms weren't easy to find. They tried both arms while Bel and Christina held her down, kicking and screaming and finally got the iv into her hand. Poor baby, crying as hard as she could, but without even enough fluids to produce tears. They gave her some anti-nausea meds in the iv and she started to get some pink back in her cheeks. Bel called me to let me know how everything was going and put me on speaker to talk to Jillian. She started to cry and ask for me, "I want my daddy!" My heart broke.
After the iv was done, she was feeling good enough for a Popsicle and some water and she finally had enough in her that she had to go pee. They packed her up and brought her home around 11pm. She slept between Belinda and I, no way were we leaving her alone for the night. In the morning she woke up not quite as chipper as usual, but better than the night before and informed us that she was "all better now" but we were still going to take it easy. The diarrhea was still present, but she was keeping fluids down now, a little bit at a time, and Popsicles were the best thing in the world. In the afternoon, she said she was hungry so we gave her some toast and saltines. We figured that was pretty innocuous a menu but a few bites in, it all came up again. She also had started complaining more adamantly that her stomach was hurting, more so than the day before. By about 6 that evening, we decided to take her in again to rule out (hopefully not rule in) appendicitis. Mom and Dad come and picked up Gavin so I could go too and save Bel some of the heartache of watching her sick baby get poked and prodded. Fortunately, it was a much better experience this time. No iv this time, thankfully, and a definitive diagnosis of Gastroenteritis. They gave us a prescription for anti-nausea meds and a recipe for home made pedialyte (on our way home, we stocked up on Popsicles). She slept with us again, but she slept soundly.
Today, we've been taking it super easy. Three CC's of water at a time, popsicles as desired, no-puke-pill as often as prescribed and all the cartoons she can watch. Jillian is doing much better. She had an appointment with her pediatrician this morning and he said we should see and improvement soon. She's more talkative and interactive, but still not the loquacious lightning bolt she usually is. We were told this thing's been going around and that it usually runs it's course in about 4-5 days. We're on day 3 so hopefully on the downward slope of this. It's going to be a weekend of healing at the Hamilton household.

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