Keeping up with the Jones's

Apparently this is the sickest year in a LONG time. The hospitals here are full, the doctor's offices are full, and my kids have been relatively ok. But, apparently they got word that everyone else was sick and needed to keep up. Thursday, Sophie began throwing up ALOT. I had taken her in that afternoon thinking she had an ear infection or something- she was cranky. That night, the puke fest began. It was really bad. The next morning, we realized that she had no sense of balance and was quickly dehydrating. She would fall everytime she stood up, and if she tried to walk, she looked VERY drunk. We took her back in, and the pediatrician was very concerned. She took her blood sugar, and then sent us to the ENT to have her tubes cleaned. Did you read that right? The tiny tubes that are imbedded deep in her middle ear that required anasthesia to put in had wax in them. So, needing a full staff to hold her down, the doctor put a LONG needle very far down in her ears and pulled out some major wax. He said that there was nothing wrong with her ears (we were thinking she had a middle ear infection causing her loss of balance). So, we were sent to have a cat scan to see if perhaps she had , get prepared, a tumor or bleeding on her brain. The cat scan looked ok, so the pediatrician wanted to admit her to get fluids put in. We opted to try and treat her at home as long as possible since we thought she wasn't severely dehydrated quite yet and she would nurse a bit.

But, this morning, she woke up pretty bad off. She would not drink anything, and it was apparent that she was dehydrating quickly. So, our doctor told us to go to the ER where they could start an iv and do lab work, and that she would probably admit her to the children's hospital so that they could get a pediatric neurologist to look at her. No one could get an iv in her. It was horribly traumatizing to watch. When someone finally got one in, she fell asleep from the screaming. Then, they started to pump the fluids in, and Sophie woke up going bezerk. It was bad. The iv had infiltrated and was filling her arm up instead of her vein. So, they put her on some serious antinauseau medicine and waited for her to nurse. They decided to send us home on the nauseau meds to see if she would drink at home. She was too dehydrated to get an iv in, and they wanted her to try and get fluids in "the old fashioned way" before they did anything else. Her labs looked good.

So, we got home, and she perked up a bit, drank some water, just ate some chicken noodle soup. But, now Sullivan has it. Isn't that horrible? When I called our pediatrician, she was truly relieved at the news that he had it. She said she was truly concerned that Sophie had something major wrong with her, but since Sullivan now had it, she knows its just a bug. Hallelujah, I guess ;) We are in for another VERY long evening, I can assure you. Sullivan is moaning and crying, throwing up, but now has a pallete in the living room, watching Cars on Blue Ray on the big screen :)

Thank you friends and family who helped me out today!!! Therese- we couldn't have made it without the DVD player! Geralyn- you know we could not have lugged Sullivan around, and I truly hope your kindness is not repaid with this bug! Mom and Dad- I hope you get to see the kids while you are on your "vacation".