Scare #2

Our second health scare was with Rachel, the weekend of her third birthday, poor girl!  

On Thursday, August 4th, my mom had had my kids and Jaxon over for a sleepover at her house.  From all accounts, it went flawlessly, I was so relieved.  However, I got to her house just after 10:00 am on Friday to pick them up only to discover that Rachel had just woken up for the morning, taken a drink of water, and thrown up.  When I walked in the door she was sitting on my mom's lap and just looked so pale and miserable.  It was so sad.  

After getting packed up, she and I headed home and my mom kept Marshall and Bridget for a bit just so I could get Rachel home and settled.  Rachel spent the rest of her day on the couch, looking quite pale, sleeping a lot, but she only threw up a couple of more times until late afternoon.  I kept thinking she would perk up and turn the corner, but she never did.  

At 4:15 pm she started throwing up again and threw up nine times in the next seven hours.  About 8:00 pm I started to think she was turning the corner though and I was less worried.  Richard had picked up Gatorade on his way home from work and we were giving her a teaspoon every five minutes and she kept that down for almost two hours.  But, come 10:00 pm she was throwing up again.  At this point though, I was still quite confident that if we could just get her to sleep for the night, that she could have a good night's sleep and would wake up as good as new in the morning.  

We made her a bed on our bedroom floor because I wanted her close to us and I laid down with her until she fell asleep.  After we went to bed though she threw up three more times, all because she was SO thirsty, but as soon as she would drink, Gatorade or water, she would just throw it right back up.  

The last time she threw up was 12:50 am and while we were cleaning it up, she had slumped downstairs and I found her trying to open a box of cereal and get water.  It was so heart-wrenching!  She was so pale and so shaky, but just kept throwing up every single mild thing that she put in her mouth.  It was then I knew we had to take her to the ER; we weren't going to make it through the night like this.

Richard helped us get ready and Rachel and I got up to Primary Children's at 1:45 am.  Every nurse, resident, and attending who came in commented on how terrible she looked.  

It took until about 3:30 in the morning to get her on Zofran, IV fluids, and have her blood and urine drawn for samples.  She just dozed off and on until then.  

When all of that finally got underway, the only thing she winced at was the catheter, but it was hardly a fight.  The nurses commented that that is how you know how sick a kid is, how much fight they put up when they are stuck with all sorts of needles.  :(

Once she had Zofran and was on IV fluids, she finally settled into a deep sleep.  

At about 4:30 am the resident and attending came in and told me that Rachel's blood sugar was 28, which is dangerously low.  A child her age should have a blood sugar between 100 and 200 and that anything below 60 is considered dangerous.  The attending was shocked that Rachel hadn't had a seizure or anything more serious.  Because of this, they admitted her to the hospital and also gave her a bolus of sugar directly into her IV.  They also replaced her regular IV fluids with basically sugar water.  

Finally just after 6:00 am we were moved to a regular hospital room, which I very much appreciated!  We had a bathroom in our room and a bed for me.  Considering I had hardly slept all night, that bed was a welcome sight.  

While we were still in the ER, they kept trying to wake Rachel up, but she never, ever opened her eyes.  She was completely wiped out and slept straight from 3:30 am until 10:30 am, bed and room transfers and all.  

When she woke up at 10:30 she started talking and was so happy to finally be able to drink something.  She snacked on a few crackers and was able to keep everything down.  A huge relief!  

Shortly after noon they stopped her IVs (after getting four bags of fluid) because they wanted to make sure she could eat and drink on her own and maintain her blood sugar.  My mom also came up to visit us and bring me lunch and important things like my toothbrush and Rachel very much enjoyed a visit from her.  

Once she left Rachel and I snuggled up in bed for an afternoon nap.  We were both SO tired!  Around 3:00 we were discharged because Rachel had done well enough on her own.  I was so glad to be going home and Rachel was delighted to have the IV taken out of her hand!

The staff at Primary Children's was all so great.  They all knew it was her birthday the next day and made sure to send her home with balloons, cards, and stuffed animals.  Rachel was in heaven.  She especially loved the wagon ride she got out of the hospital and was shocked to discover the sun was shining when we walked out of the doors.  She clearly didn't realize how long she had been in the hospital!

We got home about 4:00 on Saturday afternoon feeling very dirty and exhausted, but so happy to be home.  Due to the fiasco of the weekend, we had to cancel her family birthday party which was scheduled for that night, but she didn't care and was just thrilled to be home.  

Thankfully, she continued to drink great and her appetite finally picked up on Monday afternoon.  She's healed up nicely and hasn't looked back.  Thank goodness for modern medicine!