The Baby goes to the Emergency Room

At about 1 o'clock yesterday I wrapped up an interview and took a call from my wife.

"You have to come home. The baby needs to go to the emergency room"

"Why??" I knew the baby had been sick, but that was old news. She'd had yellow diarrhea for days, stuff that smelled like rotting camel, but she'd slept through the night. I assumed that meant an improvement.

"She looks ten times worse than when you put her to bed. She's lethargic, she hasn't taken a bottle in days without throwing up, and she'd dehydrated." Sensing some doubt she launched into an explanation. "She cries without shedding tears, her [soft spot] is sunken in, her skin doesn't bounce back when you pinch it, and she didn't pee all night."

I must have hesitated.

"Look, this is our fourth kid. I know what I'm talking about. The doctor's office is closed for the holiday, the alley is snowed in and I can't move the van, and if you can't come I'm just going to call an ambulance. She needs an IV."

So I left. A neighbor had shoveled a path for her as she waited outside. We wound up at the emergency room of the hospital where YaYa had been born.

They tried to insert a catheter twice to get a urine sample and failed, which isn't the greatest thing in the world to have to watch. Then they attached a bag in her diaper to catch any urine, and set out to take some blood (later returning for another round of samples). In the end they never could get a urine sample.

The verdict? Dehydrated, no doubt due to the diarrhea and vomiting, and low potassium for the same reason (which is odd, as we'd been pumping her full of bananas in an effort to stop the flu w/ the recommended BRAT diet of banana-rice-apples-toast).

They hooked her up to an IV twice and basically we just waited it out. I encouraged Lisa to leave and get to work on time, and I spent the last hour there with the baby. It was actually quite relaxing, minus one blood draw, as the baby fell asleep and I soon followed.

{you know what I hate about taking a kid in to see a doctor? Even the ones without kids act as if they can school you at all times. The pacifier drops . .nurse says "You know that's dirty now right?" . . you're feeding the baby, your fourth child and another nurse stops you, honest and true, and tells you you are doing it 'wrong' and the bottle should be on an angle 10 degrees higher. F* off foks. Dang nanny state.}

And wouldn't you know it, right after we were told she was going home, she filled her diaper with urine.

These events, along with the snow of course, forced the cancellation/rescheduling of our annual Egg Coloring event.

So hopefully she continues to improve and gets over this flu, because I don't want to see her land in the hospital for days like YaYa did for the same reason as a baby.