Carter's Big Adventure!

Well, Carter's big adventure started last night around 10pm. I went to check on him before bed as I always do and could smell the vomit before I even got to the top of the stairs. He was laying in, what could easily be described as, the biggest puddle of puke ever. (sorry, that's nasty) Anyway, we got him up, put him in the bath and got his bed cleaned up. He continued to throw up every few minutes for the next 30-45 minutes. Since he'd just had 3 doses of a strong antibiotic injection that day, I was afraid it was a reaction to the shot so we called the doctor's office and got a nurse emergency triage thingamabob who said to take him to the ER right away. We called our friend Derrick just to be sure the nurse people weren't legally obligated to say to take him to the ER. (Derrick is a doctor...thought I'd mention that so you didn't think we just called a random friend for their opinion) and Derrick agreed, he should go to the ER.

Chris stayed at home with the sleeping girls and I headed out in the coldest night on record with my sick sick boy. We got to the ER around 10:45 and got into a room where he just layed. Didn't move, didn't smile, didn't talk, nothing. He looked so pitiful. They took a stomach x-ray and, after much begging on my part, a shot to help with the nausea. After the shot kicked in, he finally got some rest. The put a urine collection bag on him to test for dehydration, etc. so we basically were hanging out waiting for him to pee! (good times!) Finally at 4am, he was still throwing up and had thrown up every ounce of Pedialyte they'd tried to give him, and still hadn't peed, so they decided to give him an IV and admit him. And that is when the diarrhea started. Ugg, I'll spare you the details but just know it is the worst diarrhea ever. EVER! So, upstairs we came to the pediatrics floor where we got settled in at about 6:45am.

Chris took the girls to my Mom's house and relieved me around 8:45am and we talked to Carter's doctor who told us everything that our amazing friend Derrick had already told me. The foodies brought him orange Slice, red jello, and popsicles for breakfast. Yes, pop for my 14 month old who has never had anything carbonated, and red popsicles. Seriously, have these people ever MET kids? He seemed to really like the orange Slice (but then again, he was DEHYDRATED and therefore maybe would have loved anything liquid) Chris got him to eat some cheerios and bananas and then he took a nap. I came home and attempted to take a nap myself. I was able to sleep a little but mostly was just thinking about Carter and wondering what was going on and replaying the previous night in my mind a million times. I went back and Chris left to run a few errands. While he was gone, Carter woke up and the doctor came in and decided he was OK to go home.

Long story short, it must have been a stomach flu virus that he caught while he was at the doctor's office getting his Rocephin injections for his ear infection. (yeah, the irony wasn't lost on me) We've been home a while now and he is acting just like normal. I put him to bed a little early and I am not too far behind. I've been awake 44 of the last 48 hours so I think I'm going to sleep VERY well!!

So it was a night of firsts. First trip to the ER with a kid, first time a kid had to have an IV, first time a kid was admitted to the hospital, first time pulling an allnighter since before my uterus was operational. Good times, good times.

Here is Mr. Man after we got into his ER room. He couldn't get comfortable and kept trying out different positions. He finally found an acceptable one and fell asleep.

The problem with falling asleep is that everytime he did, he'd have to sit up and throw up within about 10 minutes. Here he is in a puke free moment. He just layed like this for a long time.

Still trying to find a comfy place. People kept bringing him stickers which would ordinarily have thrilled him, but he could not have cared less!

He was so sick he barely even cried when they put the IV in. They even tried once higher up in his arm and "blew a vein" as they said....due to dehydration and the fact that his veins are small. (hello? HE is small!)

This position was the best he slept all night. He got drugs for his nausea and IV fluids in and slept for what seemed like a long time, but I lost ALL track of time. I couldn't take my eyes off of him, because if he woke up and rolled over he'd fall right off onto the hard floor since he was just on a little skinny gurney thing.

Once he had some food and drink, he started feeling much better. Here is an action shot of him playing with the super cool Thomas balloon that my friend Patti sent up to him! (she works in the hospital)

Here he is saying "I feel fine, let's blow this popsicle stand" He also thought it was really cool that the little hard plastic arm board that his IV arm was in would make a cool "ting ting ting" sound when smacked on the metal rails of the crib. (That was enjoyable in my 25th consecutive hour of consciousness.)

The "play lady" brought in some cool toys for Carter to play with and he really seemed to like them. Bless his little heart, he really didn't care at all that the IV was in. He tried to play with it a few times, but really didn't bother it much. He liked the fact that the IV machine lit up and kept telling it "Hi!" He also had a good time flirting with all the nurses.