[Mommy's Thoughts]Received 05/22/2008 00:46

Andrew's Adventure at Cooks

We have had quite a busy few weeks here. Andrew had his FW First Birthday here last weekend along with Mother's Day. Lots of celebrating and lots to post, but (as always) seem to be a bit behind here in Cowtown.

Anyway, on to the story at hand... Last TH Ricky and I headed out to the annual EM-S ISD banquet they have every year for the employees of the district. Hey, we are not ones to pass up free food!

We sent the kids to a friend's house for the evening. It was our first time out together in FOREVER. The funny thing was that we didn't even sit together! He sat with Highland and I sat with Chisholm, but nonetheless we were kid free...

We picked the kids up around 10 and headed home. They were beat! I slept in Drew's room that night (Ricky is picking up the "snoring" habit but blames it on being "sick".) Around 3 that night I hear him start making these awful noises. Uh, oh, yep! He is sick... Daddy's turn to stay home.

Daddy said he threw up ALL day. He would drink and then throw up and then play. Daddy stayed right by his side the whole day. By SAT he was running fever and running out of both ends. He slept off and on all day SAT. By SUN the fever had stopped and he was no longer throwing up, but he just wasn't himself.

We called the dr and they wanted us to head to the ER just to be sure. Hannah stayed with Auntie Chris while we headed to downtown FW. Poor little booger! His lips were soooo dry and chapped. He was licking them trying to get just some bit of wetness.

He was very whiney and just wasn't the loveable little guy he usually is. When we got there, we didn't wait long before they called us back. Instead of checking our vitals and sending us out to registration, we went straight back to the ER. Guess he just LOOKED sick.

The doctor came in less than 5 min and said, "Yep, he is dehydrated. Let's start the IV."

In come 3 very nice nurses to help Drew out. The nice thing was they did ALL of the holding. Andrew didn't like it one bit. For one, he HATES to be held down and two I don't think the needle in his hand was a picnic.

They even came him some Zofran for the nausea. The only thing was that they wouldn't let him drink anything until the Zofran had kicked in. He cried for 30 min. The nurse finally came back to check and see if his IV was hurting him, but um no. He was just mad b/c he wanted his sippy.

Finally, he was able to drink. He drank and slept off and on the rest of the afternoon. Every time Nurse Tana came back in to check on him, he would just HOWL at her until she left the room. It was kind of funny.

I knew he started feeling better when he got mad at his "arm" (that was all wrapped up with his IV) because it was causing him to drop his cup.

Finally, after several doses of fluids, the nurse called the doctor in to re-eval Andrew. Even the doctor couldn't believe how much better he looked since he came in. He still wasn't smiling or anything, but his cheeks were filling back out and his eyes didn't look so sunk in.

Andrew is definitely getting better each day. Yesterday he finally started to eat a little. He hasn't been walking much until today. He even started giggling last night! It was such a nice sound to hear again.

I kept him home with me again today ( I was already home with Hannah. She started feeling sick yesterday) as his belly is still a little upset. I have changed more diapers today than I have since he was a newborn.

He is going back to school tomorrow. His pediatrician wants to see him tomorrow if the diarrhea hasn't gone away. Guess we will play that by ear.

We learned two things from this experience: 1) What a dehydrated child looks like and 2) Where the Children's ER was...