Monday, May 30, 2011

The Long Week

I mentioned in my last post about going to the beach to explore during low tide, that Madelynn hadn't been feeling well.  I had expected her to be down for just a day or two, like Josh had been.  But that was not the case with her.

She vomited Thursday morning and again Thursday afternoon.  Friday and Saturday, she seemed to be on the mend.  My husband and Joshua left learning Friday to go camping.  Mikaela and Samuel each had a friend coming over to spend the night Saturday.  Since it had been 24 hours since Madelynn had vomited (she was still having diarrhea) and I had thoroughly disinfected the house, our friends decided to keep our plans for the sleepover.  Forty minutes after the first friend arrived, Madelynn threw up again.  That friend decided to keep her distance and call mom if she vomited again.  I called the other friend and let them know; they decided to cancel.  A little while later, she got sick again.  Mikaela's friend called home, and mom came to pick her up.  That was the beginning of a very long night.

Madelynn continued to vomit and not hold anything down.  By evening, I had called the on-call doctor who felt she was ok to stay home and instructed me on oral rehydration therapy.  We hopped into the car to pick up Pedialyte and dinner, since there was no way I'd be cooking.  Getting her to take Pedialyte proved challenging.  By 9pm, I was seriously considering driving 30 minutes to the children's hospital ER where our pediatrician has practicing rights.  I decided to keep working with nursing and Pedialyte because I couldn't imagine pulling two kids out of bed to spend the night in ER.  I should have gone.

Sunday morning, we got up and hit the road.  It was still obvious Madelynn needed to be seen.  I was right; she was seriously dehydrated and hypoglycemic.  They gave her Zofran, then a 500ml saline bolus, and some dextrose in her IV.  She hadn't peed, her heart rate was still high, and she hadn't peaked up with that, so they gave her another 300ml saline bolus.  I had called Scott, and he packed up early and met us at the hospital.  After the 300ml of saline, they sent us home to continue to push fluids.

But that wasn't enough.  By Wednesday, Madelynn was looking better with short periods of activity but she was still vomiting.  We made an appointment and went into our PCP's office.  The doctor we saw sent us back to the ER to weigh her on their scale and retake her labs.  While they waited for her labs to come back, they started another IV, gave her Zofran, and gave her another 500ml of saline.  She came back hypoglycemic again and offered her Goldfish and apple juice.  That bumped her blood sugar back up enough that they didn't have to give her dextrose again.  However, her labs came back showing no improvement over Sunday; her electrolytes were all skewed.  She was admitted overnight.

We spent the night in the hospital with Madelynn on continuous IV.  That IV was a maintenance type, slower and containing sugar.  Her diet was limited to clear liquids only.  She was to be given Zofran as needed.  She did really well in the hospital, generally tolerating the nurses and doctors messing with her as long as I was holding her.  She was happy and alert.  She vomited and had more diarrhea overnight.  And while she looked better, I was wondering how long we'd be there since she was still getting sick.

The next morning, the swarm of doctors arrived.  Our children's hospital is a teaching hospital so we had the attending, a resident, a medical student, two first year medical students, and a high school student all doing rounds.  They decided to challenge Madelynn by stopping the IV to see if she would/could take in enough fluids orally.  They also upgraded her diet to all fluids.  She was feeling so much better that she took in nearly double what they were hoping for and held it down.  So, we were discharged GThursday evening.

On the way home, we stopped by the store to pick up fluids/food for Madelynn because I knew I had nothing for her at home.  We got home, and she again threw up.  This time, however, she bounced right back.  She continued to take in fluids and then easy to digest foods.  We waited for the huge diaper that would come, expecting a huge blowout.  Neither more vomiting nor the blowout happened, and Madelynn is back to normal, albeit a bit skinnier.  She had lost somewhere between 11-13% of her body weight; it's clearly visible in her face.

We're glad she's back to normal.  It was a long week taking care of her.  Mikaela and Samuel both got sick Friday but very mildly.  Now we can get back to our regular schedule (once we get our house clean again) and back to blogging.

Next up, Sam's black belt testing Friday and Saturday.

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2 Comments:

sheli said...

So glad that she is well and everything is alright. What a scary week! Hopefully this week will be much better and ya'll can get some well needed rest.

Heather said...

I am glad she is better! I went through something similiar with my son when he was 3 or 4 years old. He was in the hospital for a week but it was worse because we were out of town visiting relatives and the hubby wasn't with us. I stayed in the hospital with him while my mom kept my daughter who was 6 months old at the time!