| Saturday, January 26, 2008 |
| g is for gastro... |
What a week. Tuesday night all seemed well. I'd put Jakob to bed at 7pm as usual and he was sleeping like the proverbial baby. I enjoyed a nice supper and some well-deserved knitting/tv time while Yannick was at bowling. I managed to finish the front and back of the Hickory Dickory Dot baby sweater and had taken photos so I'd be ready to blog Wednesday morning. At 1am I got into bed, all set to listen to some podcasts on my ipod, play a few games on my palm and go to bed.
That's when Jakob started throwing up in his sleep.
I heard him heaving on the monitor and got into his room in time to get him into a sitting up position for the first wave. We got him cleaned up, changed his sheets and pjs and I brought him into our bed to sit with me for a bit. That's when it happened again. And again. And again. Half an hour later he'd thrown up at least once every 5 minutes and we decided to call the Info-Sante 24 hour nurses hotline. He was so exhausted that after every spasm he'd collapse against me, not even having enough energy to fully close his eyes before falling into a semi-sleep.
Info-Sante suggested we bring him to the hospital to make sure it wasn't something we couldn't get under control, but unfortunately the short car ride to our local hospital made him fall asleep, so when we arrived at triage with what looked like a peacefully sleeping baby in his bucket they didn't consider us a priority. Sure enough he woke up after we'd left the nurse's room, and spent the next while in my arms alternating between sleep, semi-conscious and vomiting. FOUR HOURS later, after he'd thrown up on me at least 8 times, I carried him over to the admittance person and asked how many more times he'd have to throw up before they would see us. They took us in to the doctor right away.
Unfortunately (again) the doctor said that they had no pediatrician on staff there, and that since Jakob was STILL throwing up he wanted us to go downtown to the Montreal Childrens' Hospital and have him seen there. Why couldn't they have told us this at 2am when we got there??? So at 5:30am we were on our way downtown in pre-rush hour traffic with a sick baby.
Fortunately (for once) there was no wait at the Childrens'. I hear this isn't always the case, and we were really lucky that the waiting room was empty when we got there. They took us right away and first a nurse, then a doctor saw Jakob. They started getting worried about dehydration- he still had tears and drool so he was ok but he hadn't had anything to drink since his bottle before bed and he had thrown up over 20 times already. The resident asked me to give him his bottle, and he guzzled down 2 ounces of formula, threw it up right away, took another 2 ounces, fell asleep for 20 minutes, woke up and threw up again.
That was not good, because their next plan was to put him on an IV drip. Unfortunately (yet again) he's little, and after being so sick and losing so many fluids, his already tiny veins were even smaller. 3 different nurses tried and stuck him with needles while another one held him down, screaming. 2 nurses managed to find veins, and both popped. After an hour they gave him a break and he just collapsed in my arms. Thankfully they decided not to try again.
I had to spend the next few hours giving him Pedialyte by syringe, one dropper every 5 minutes. Yannick had left at this point 'cus he had to go to work, so I spent the next many hours holding him while he slept and feeding him the liquid. He threw up one more time at 10am, and at lunch time my mom showed up and helped me out with the holding/feeding. By 3pm he was still keeping in his fluids so they let us go home. Did I mention yet that I'd been awake since Tuesday morning, 9am? It was now Wednesday afternoon.
We went to my mom's house 'cus they offered to help out by watching Jakob so I could get some sleep. Well...by the time we got there I knew I'd caught it from him. I fell asleep right away, woke up at 7pm and started throwing up myself.
Ugh. I won't get into all the details, but I had it all day Thursday while trying to take care of Jakob, it's now Saturday evening, my mom who is spending the weekend in New York with her sisters celebrating my aunt Mimi's birthday...she got it the night they got there. My sister got it this morning. Yannick got it last night and is still asleep...which is why this post has no photos- he's sleeping in the spare bedroom where the main computer is. I'm typing this on the photo-free laptop.
On top of everything else, Jakob has been congested since Monday, either from a cold or from teething, I'm not sure. All I know is that he's got so much snot pouring out of his little head (sorry!) that I've been calling him my little Booger Boy.
The end result of all this is that we couldn't go to Ottawa today like we were supposed to, since I didn't want to take a chance on getting little month old Kayla sick. I also cancelled dinner plans we were supposed to have Sunday night. Luckily every one is reschedulable, since I didn't want to take a chance on getting anyone ELSE sick.
Jakob did not want to sleep today and I had him in my arms for the better part of 12 hours, but he's finally down for the night so after I make myself a light supper I think I'm going to get some knitting done. I have managed to finish the two sleeves of the Hickory Dickory Dot sweater and hope to get as much more done tonight as I can. I want to get it off the needles and in the mail as soon as I can so I can start a Noro ribbed scarfalong with Maaike. |
posted by Jennifer Lori @ 6:54 pm   |
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| 5 Comments: |
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Oh sweetie. Gastro is the absolute worst (well, now I think that croup is the worst - ugh)! It seems like EVERYONE is sick lately! Hang in there.
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Aww poor Jakob! And poor you, and Yannick and everyone else who got it. Gastro sucks! I hope everyone feels better.
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I know it doesn't seem lucky, but you were truly lucky he didn't dehydrate with all the vomitting he did. Your post brought back memories of a time when all three of the kids, my husband and I all had it...on the day before a scheduled birthday party ....that I, of course had to get on the phone and cancel in between trips to the john!
I hope you are all feeling much better very soon.
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This gastro seems to run around here in Montreal these days... But kids get back on their feet very fast! :)
Meanwhile, take good care of yourself so you don't get sick.
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That sounds absolutely awful! I'm so glad you are all feeling better now. What a scary night though!
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Oh sweetie. Gastro is the absolute worst (well, now I think that croup is the worst - ugh)! It seems like EVERYONE is sick lately! Hang in there.