What a whirlwind of a week we had! One that I am glad to have in the past!! It started last Sunday when Zoey woke up and had a tummy ache and was super tired! We almost literally dragged her out of bed, threw some clothes on her and went to church. She started to get a fever at church and we had to hold her while she slept in our laps....she was getting more and more miserable with each passing minute! We left as soon as sacrament was over and put her back to bed. Poor Zozo doesn't like to take medicine, so when she is sick, she just has to ride it out! Crazy girl....I really wish she would realize that medicine is there to make you feel better! She literally slept ALL day on Sunday.....she didn't eat and we knew it was super important to keep pushing the liquids, so we would wake her up every once in a while to force her to take some sips of Gatorade! She didn't get much to drink and would go right back to sleep!! :(
Monday came and she was still sicky!! The fever was gone, but she was still so sleepy, didn't want to eat, and wasn't drinking as much as she should be! As the day went on, she got worse....she threw up once when Jeremiah was trying to get her to drink. We didn't think she was dehydrated yet because she WAS getting a little bit to drink and was still going potty.....we just thought she had some crazy stomach bug that wiped her out & made her sooooo sleepy!! Monday night we almost took her to the ER at 10:00 pm cuz she was very lethargic and we couldn't keep her awake to even talk to us or engage with us! It was so scary! We told her we were taking her to the ER and I think that scared her and perked her up enough to convince us that maybe this wasn't an emergency after all. I gave her a bath to keep her awake a little and try to make her feel better....but she just wanted to go back to sleep! But she was up for a good hour or so and so we felt we could wait til morning to go see our regular Pediatrician!
I was hoping she would wake up all better on Tuesday morning.....nope!! :( At 8:00 on the dot, I called the Pediatrician and got an appt that morning. It was a challenge to go to the doc because she didn't want to walk at all. I had to carry her limp little body into the car and then into the office....while crazy Maddix enjoyed the freedom of Mommy having her hands full!!! I plopped her on the bed in the doc's office and she laid right down. It makes me so sad to look at this pic and see hoe sick and sad she looks....she just laid there and stared at the wall. :(
The doc was perplexed by her symptoms because she didn't really have any flu like symptoms....no cold, cough, etc. So he ordered some bloodwork to be done immediately and hoped we would get results by the end of the day! So we headed to the lab.....I got Zoey a cup of water in the lobby of the lab and she immediately puked the few sips she took up in the garbage can! Poor thing! I felt so bad for her, felt bad for the people in the waiting room that had to witness it, and felt bad for the person that would have to clean out that garbage can!! :-/ All the while, crazy Maddix was again taking advantage of Mommy having her hands full and he was filling his cup up with water from the water machine, dumping it, splashing...pretty much making a mess!! I was rubbing Zoey's back and holding her weak body up...while yelling at Maddix to stop from across the room!
It was finally our turn to get a blood draw. I held Zoey on my lap and the poor girl was so weak that she couldn't even fight it....she just laid there in my lap and let them draw 4 vials of blood!! Poor thing! It was her 1st blood draw ever! She was terrified! I was blocked in the chair holding Zoey and crazy Maddix was free roaming again....I begged and pleaded with him to stay still and offered a sucker if he was good! Phew....that worked!!
Now it was a waiting game. Grandpa was just getting out of a dentist appt a mile away from the doc, so we stopped to say hi and let Maddix have some lunch with him. Thought some Sprite would be good for Zoey, but she wasn't interested!! :(
4:00 pm came and I hadn't heard about the lab work yet.....called the doc and told him she was no better, threw up again and at this point, I was really having a hard time to get her to drink. He said to get her to the ER cuz we needed to get some fluids in her and needed some answers now! So off we went.
1st time for this sweet little girl to go to the ER.....she was scared and was awake for the longest she had been awake the last 3 days. They said right away that she was very dehydrated because her heart rate was so high. They drew MORE blood, started an IV to get some fluids in her, and did an ultrasound to check her appendix since she was complaining so much of a tummy ache!!
We waited and waited.....for 6 hours in the ER to be exact. They did tests and tests and more tests and everything kept coming back normal except for the fact that she was SEVERELY dehydrated! We kept hearing more and more from each new doctor we saw, how badly dehydrated she was!! :( Made me so sad that we didn't realize it sooner and get her there to get started on fluids earlier!! I have just never had a deydrated kid, so didn't know that's what this was! :(
Finally by the end of the night, the doc said that they were transferring us to CHOC for further testing and to get her admitted (another 1st....we have never had a kid admitted to the hospital and to be honest, I am not sure if I have ever even been admitted to a hospital?!?!!?). I panicked a little....cuz in my head, CHOC (Children's Hospital of Orange County) is where REALLY sick kids go...or kids that have cancer....or kids that can't be helped at another hospital. So I kinda panicked at that point! And then they told us that the ambulance from CHOC was on it's way! Now I was really panicked....when I realized she was so bad that they didn't even want to allow us to take her there ourselves...but we had to go by ambulance! I guess that makes sense to me now since she WAS in fact hooked up to an IV! She had 2 bags of IV fluids while in the ER and her #'s were still so bad! So the ambulance got there and started her on some more sugar water!
They loaded her up on the stretcher that had a car seat on top of it....I think the only thing harder than seeing your kid laying in a hospital bed, is seeing your kid on a gurney being rolled into an ambulance! This is the first time we have ever had to do anything like this for one of our kids and I REALLY REALLY hope it is the LAST!!!! I was able to go with Zoey and Jeremiah followed in our car. CHOC is amazing......from the ambulance ride where they had a Disney movie playing in the back for her, to the "choco bear" that they gave her for the ambulance ride, to the wonderful doctors and nurses that are so amazing with kids, to the services that they offer at the hospital. It was all very impressive....but like I said, I never ever EVER want to have to go there again!!!
At about midnight, we arrived, went through some secret entrance and straight up to the room she was admitted to! And that's when the nurses and doctors and residents and medical students and phlebotomists started flooding in.....poking and prodding poor Zoey, asking questions, and trying to collect all the information they could to figure out what was wrong. I think I told the story about what happened at least 10 times by midnight!!
Day 1......
She continued to sleep for most of the time in the hospital....
Choco bear definitely gave her lots of comfort....she hugged him and slept with him and kept him very close by the whole time. And luckily she had her favorite blankie with her.
Still sleeping....we were on the 3rd or 4th bag of IV fluids by now and doctors and nurses were surprised and concerned with why the fluids weren't making her perk up and feel better yet....so the tests continued!!! Again, we kept hearing OVER AND OVER how VERY SEVERELY dehydrated she was!!!! So so sad and so so scary!!
It was so hard to see her teeny tiny petite body get even teenier!!! She was looking so so skinny and pale and her eyes were getting dark underneath! Poor thing!! :(
Pretty sure I NEVER want to see my kids hooked up to anything like this ever again!! This little IV machine became Zoey's little sidekick. Everytime she had to go potty, we would have to walk that little machine with us since she was constantly hooked up to the IV!
And I became the expert and reading this machine that showed her blood pressure and pulse at all times!!!
Day 2.....
On Wednesday afternoon, we celebrated when she was able to eat 3 saltine crackers!!! It was the first time she had eaten since Saturday night!!!! And we ordered a smoothie shake, in hopes that she could choke that down to get some calories! Luckily she drank about a third of it....we thought we were making a turn for the better and then she felt sick again.....and went to sleep!! And she didn't eat anything else for the rest of the day! We had a HUGE menu of room service that we could order for her and she didn't want any of it.....not even her all time favorites!! The tests continued......they checked her kidneys, liver, pancreas.....and who knows what else!!?!
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Here is where we spent our time. I never left this room for our entire stay, except to go to the bathroom. See that tiny twin bed back there that Jeremiah is laying on?? The one that looks paper thin and really uncomfortable?? Yeah that is where Jeremiah and I BOTH slept on Tuesday night....both of us....curled up in balls!! I have never appreciated our Cal King bed so much!!! We slept in our clothes and shoes......for 2 nights!!
This is what we did most of the day....Zoey never really wanted to watch TV....that's when you know they are really sick!! But we kept putting the Disney channel on so she would try to stay awake! Jer & I took turns laying in the bed with her and snuggling her!
On Wednesday night, Jer slept in the bed with Zoey and I got the comfy twin all to myself...so we all slept so much better that night!
Day 3.....
By this point, we were all very eager to get out of there!! All of a sudden Zoey seemed to "snap out of it" as quickly as she snapped into this sickness!!! It was so weird....almost like she just sat up and felt better and started acting like her normal Zoey self.....it must have been the 5th bad of IV fluids that did the trick and made her start to feel better!!!! We welcomed that....it was such a change to how she had been all week!! We were hopeful that would mean we could go home that day, but we knew we needed to get her to eat and drink normally before they would release us....and she still wasn't doing that!!
We saw the doc on Thursday morning and she was very happy that Zoey was smiling and feeling better!! She told us that if she could eat a good lunch, then they would think about letting us go home! So we got on the phone right away and ordered room service.....lunch was Mini Wheats cereal, grapes, strawberries, pineapple, chocolate milk, and orange juice! She picked a little, but didn't eat too much! But we were happy that she was at least drinking more! We figured the eating would come....just needed to keep her hydrated to get out of there!
A "musical therapy" person came around each day, but Zoey was either sleeping or never felt good enough to let them in to sing songs. A "child life" person came in each day too to offer board games, movies, toys, coloring books, beads....pretty much whatever she wanted!! We were excited on Thursday when Zoey said she would love to play with the Princess toy they brought and she also asked for some coloring pages and a Princess movie!! Hallelujah!!! :)
So we got released.....with still no answers, other than maybe it was a really really bad virus that made her not want to eat and drink.....or an "abdominal migraine", which is pretty much the kid version of a migraine and common to kids ages 5-9.....hmmm! Actually a lot of her symptoms match up with that, but there's no way to know if that was it, so who knows!! At this point, I don't really care what it was!! Just so glad that she is back to her normal self and that it was nothing too serious!! Being in the hospital with your child, especially in a Children's hospital.....makes you realize how lucky you are! I saw other people in there as I walked by rooms with kids Maddix's age, or babies....and I realized that we are lucky to have been in and out of there, relatively quickly, compared to some of the people there I am sure!
We are lucky to have healthy kids for the most part! And we were so lucky to get her home to her own bed! She was so excited to have her bed back....she hugged her pillow and said "I love you, bed"!! HA!! She slept on Thursday night with Choco bear and with the lamb & teddy bear that each of her Grandma's brought her in the hospital!
Ayden's journal homework for the week was "My hero is....." It made my heart happy to read what he wrote! Absense definitely made the heart grow fonder at our house this week. Zoey said to me on Friday (referring to Ayden), "Isn't it funny how you really don't like someone at all....and then you go away for a few days and you realize how much you missed them"!!
And they haven't stopped playing since she's been home! They are definitely in the "honeymoon phase".....I am enjoying the fact that they are getting along...but I am sure before long, they will be at each other's throats again!! HA!!
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