The Weary Mother

It occurred to me that most people are probably thinking that I am an over reactor. They probably thought, "sheesh, her daughter just had the stomach flu! Big deal!" Well, I was thinking the same thing until my mom of all people said "it's a good thing you took her to the hospital when you did." So let me paint the picture for you.

Saturday morning, Magdalena started fussing like she wanted to nurse. I moved her in the bed to nurse on a different side and as I lifted my shirt up, she puked. So I handed her to Erich to take to the tub. When I handed her to Erich, she puked all over his back. (Apparently, he now has Daddy Powers that make him immune to feeling ill over bodily fluids. Yay.) So I bathed her and brought her a new pair of PJs and got her out of the tub. Erich got in the tub at that time and while I was dressing her, she puked again. This marks 3 times in the course of about 15 minutes. So back to the shower she went with Daddy and after she got out, you guessed it!, she puked again. This continued for the next hour and a half until I finally just took her to the ER. In the fifteen minute drive she puked three or four times. It was awful. In the ER, they took chest Xrays and blood work to make sure she wasn't housing any pneumonia. The entire time at the ER she continued puking every five minutes. She was miserable. They brought her some phenergran and she promptly fell asleep. At that time, I felt like we could go home and they agreed. My mom and StepDad met me at my house and Magdalena continued to sleep for about an hour or so. This was at about 11am or 1130. At noon, she woke and started puking again. We tried giving her some pedialyte because she was wretching and fussing. She nursed often out of choice, but immediately after unlatching, she'd vomit everywhere. At around 1pm she started with the liquid poop. She had liquid poop every fifteen minutes and in between the liquid poop she would vomit. This continued and at about 3pm I called the on call doctor. I was informed that he wouldn't be picking up messages until 6pm, but I could speak to the ER doc since I had been there that morning. The ER called some phenegran in. We gave it to her and she slept a bit, but every time she woke up she puked and pooped. Around 8pm Erich got home (he had to do a service call on a computer) and I had already placed a call to on call doctor. So much was coming out of her, nothing was going in not even breastmilk, and she was just laying there. When the oncall doc called back, he thought that we were losing the fight. He had us bring her in as a direct admit for IV fluids. He thought we would only be there overnight and that the next day she would be "as good as new."

Sunday morning when he came in, she wasn't perky. She was still just laying there so he decided that we should probably keep her another day. Let me back up a bit, Saturday night she started running a fever. Her little body felt like it was on fire. I kept asking them to take her temperature. When they did, they'd take it under the arm and get numbers like 97.7 or 98.5 and said she was fine. Sunday morning after the doctor left the room, I had the nurse take it again but this time they took it in the ear. 103.7. I was furious. Magdalena was absolutely miserable and they ignored me when I told them over and over and over that she really did have a fever. They started giving her motrin and tylenol and her fever held steady at 102 to 103 all day long on both meds. This continued through the night sometimes reaching 104.1 on both meds. They eventually just left thermometer in the room with me. heh. I think they got sick of me asking to take her temp. Sunday night I put cool cloths on her back and held her all night long. She hadn't puked, but the liquid poop was still very persistent.

Monday morning, our regular doctor came in to see us. He felt that her temperature was "impressive" and that meant a lot coming from him, as he isn't one to get excited over fevers. He felt we needed to stay in and keep an eye on her fever and keep her fluids going since the fever was so high with meds. I also asked for a clear fluids diet to be started.

By Monday evening, she was feeling a bit better but still pretty mellow. She played with me for about an hour that night, which made me feel good. By Tuesday morning, when Dr. S got there, I had already packed up our stuff and was ready to go home! She was holding down fluids and I think we both needed the comforts of home. He agreed and that ended our very first hospital visit (and hopefully our last!).