Our Unexpected Trip to the Hospital

(This post is not for the squeamish.)

Starting on Tuesday 2-28 Carter woke up in the early morning hours with the stomach flu. He has never acted that sick before. He layed in my arms all day long. He didn't want me to read to him or anything. He would try to walk, take two steps and fall to the ground. We layed around all day and watched shows. Thank goodness for satellite with 2 Nick channels, 2 Disney channels, Noggin and DVR! Wed. morning Carter woke up super cute and happy, but still with diarrhea. Thursday Carter woke up just as bad as he was on Tuesday. He couldn't hold down any fluid. Around 4:00pm when Carter threw up and was crying but no tears came I decided it was time to call the doctor to see if he had any tips for me on how to keep fluids inside him. After giving his status, the nurse told us to take him right away to the Children's Hospital. So Matt (he had just walked in the door), Carter, and I grabbed some stuff to get through the hours of wait time at the ER and took off.

While in the waiting room, Carter chomped on a few ice chips and started to perk up a bit. We figured it was the end of the day and Carter's body was already healing itself. We were feeling like idiots showing up at the ER and having the Doctor tell us, yep your child has the stomach flu, nothin we can do for ya. Matt and I have never been the parents to be overly cautious and take our kid in the doctors quickly. Not that there is anything wrong with that, it is just not our style. So we decided we should just pack up and leave before we pay out our $75 dollars to be sent home with our child who was hardly sick anymore. But as we were walking out the door, Carter's name was called and we decided what the heck, let's just go.

Here we are waiting to see the doctor. Carter is somewhat smiling, he is actually talking which he wasn't doing before, paying attention to books I was reading him, etc. They asked him if he wanted a popsicle which Carter calls "colds" and Carter said he did.
Matt and I got a big kick out of him eating this "25 cent" popsicle and kidded around that this was the most expensive popsicle that he will ever have since it really cost us $75 because we were certain we were going home as soon as he finished that popsicle.

The resident came in looked at him and agreed with us that Clinically he looked like he was on the mend. She said let's just get the attending in here so we can send you home. Thank goodness for attending doctors who have more experience and wisdom (sorry all my resident friends & husband, but it is the truth) because our attending caught some warning signs and said we needed to stay and get more liquid down him before he could go. Carter promptly threw up everything we tried to put down him so on the IV he went.

Doesn't he look so cute in his hospital gown? After blood work, we found out he was in the danger zone of dehydration, the doctors all told us that his test results were "impressive." In fact, it was bad enough that he needed to be admitted to the hospital. They all got a kick out of it too, because he was fairly perky for the dehydration state that he was in.

So Carter layed there with his IV and Jungle Book. THANK GOODNESS for portable DVD players!!!

All of Carter's veins were sunken so they kept poking him over and over. Two people were laying on him while a third was poking him. I just sat there and cried the whole time while my little boy was screaming and struggling. It was horrible!

Finally around 10 o' clock while we were still waiting for a room in the hospital, Carter "passed out." The nurses got a big kick out of the way he was sprawled out. One would sing the wipe out song as she passed our draped off room.

This is Carter and I on our bed we shared during our night at the hospital. It was a restless night for me, but Carter did pretty good. We shared a room with a newborn baby and a mom who left the TV on till 4 o' clock. At around 3:30 Carter woke up and saw me in bed next to him. He gasped and then in a super loving voice said, "Mommy." It melted my heart.

So we were admitted on Thursday and on Friday Carter was okayed to play in the kid center. This room was awesome! It had a Thomas Train Table, every kind of gaming system, arts and crafts, computers, lots of toys, and a hand full of volunteers to play with the kids. Carter thought this was the greatest. Matt and I are worried he might like this hospital stay a little too much. Carter's face looks so funny in the picture above because he is being a duck in this picture, this is him quaking.

The video below i think is pretty funny. He woke up from his night sleep asking where his friend went? I said he must have been dreaming. He said, "Oh yes, dreaming." Then he told me he also dreamed about water and juice. He must have been a pretty thirsty boy!

One more thing I wanted to add, the doctors came and rounded on him shortly after I took this video. As you can see he was a pretty chipper kid. He had just finished watching Mickey Mouse Playhouse. While the doctors were talking to Matt and I, Carter busted into the "Hot Dog" song and the doctors laughed and said what is a kid like that doing in the hospital. Later on that day when they told us they were going to let us go (we were worried they might not because his diarrhea was still really bad) they said a kid who sings the "Hot Dog" song in the hospital really shouldn't have to be in the hospital so I really think that is what pushed the doctors over the edge into letting us go home. Thank goodness I have a spunky kid because I don't think I could have taken another night in there. More than that, thank goodness for modern day medicine and for the priesthood and that my husband is worthy and able to give my son and myself blessings. My family continually is blessed by Heavenly Father's tender mercies and I am so thankful to Him and His Son Jesus Christ.