Poor Sick Emily

Picture taken about 2 minutes before she puked all over the car

Emily did not have a good trip to Ottawa. On our way down on Sunday she threw up in a McDonald's after lunch. We figured she just had a touch of car sickness and cleaned her up and continued on our way incident free. She had dinner at grandma and grandpa's and shortly after our week of hell started.

The poor thing couldn't keep anything down. Not even the smallest sip of water. As each day passed she got weaker and weaker and was so miserable. I called Telehealth and they said it was probably just a bug and she didn't need to go to the hospital to just keep giving her fluids. She started getting a little better it seemed, keeping water down so we gave in when she wanted some of our french fries at dinner, she was starving and begging and I couldn't say no. And then she threw those up and it got worse from there.

Jason and I decided enough was enough and we took her into CHEO. On the way there she threw up in the car confirming to us we were doing the right thing. We got in pretty fast and they said she wasn't dehydrated cause her diaper was a little wet (I told them she'd been wearing it for 12 hrs) and she was producing tears as she was crying hysterically as they were poking her. They gave us a syringe and a cup of apple juice and sent us to a room to give her fluids to see if she could keep them down. She took 60ml which was a record for her that week but still looked off. The doctor came in and examined her and couldn't feel her tummy cause she was all curled up and screaming. So the Doctor ordered an IV put in so she could get some IV fluids and blood work to see if what she had was bacterial. They also did a urine test to see if she had a UTI.

Having the IV put in was the most painful thing I've ever gone through as a parent. I'd take drug-less labour any day over watching my child in such agony. She was sick, and exhausted, and dehydrated and just wanted to be held, but she was being held down on a table by strangers all spread out as they tried to find a vein. She was screaming and crying with eyes that looked at us like "why are you letting them do this to me?". I had to leave the room. When I came back in they were just getting the needle in. Then her vein collapsed and they said they needed to do it again in another location. for 20 minutes she was held down forcefully as she cried and struggled and finally had no more tears cause she was so dehydrated. They got the IV in in a location they hadn't previously numbed so it really hurt her. As soon as it was in I scooped her up and tried to comfort her. After a few minutes she just passed out from exhaustion in my arms.

We took turns sitting with her for 3 hours as the IV fluids went in. With 30ml to go the alarm on the IV went off. The nurse came in and fiddled with it and couldn't get it to work so they took her and put her back on the gurney and held her down again, as she cried again, and tried to fix it. Every time they moved the needle around she screamed in pain. Finally the nurse said "we're going to have to try another location. And that's when I LOST it. I said "No! You're not doing that to her again for 30mL of fluid!" So the nurse said she'd get the doctor. When the Doctor came in I told her I refuse to allow another IV be inserted so she said we could try to give her more fluids by syringe, and then she left to check on Emily's test results.

Everything came back "normal", no bacterial infection, no UTI, no elevated white blood cell count. So she told us it was probably just a gastro-intestinal bug and that because of her age/size it could take up to 11 days for her body to fight it off. She gave us some instructions on how to administer fluids and when to re-introduce foods and then had the nurse come in to take the IV out.

As soon as we got outside Emily was a much happier kid. When we got back to my parent's I asked my mom to cut off her hospital ID bracelet. When I had put it on her at the hospital they had me put it on her ankle as kids are less likely to try to tear t off there. So I put it on kind of loose, I could put my finger between it and her ankle easily. When mom went to cut it off it was hard to slide the scissor blade between it and her leg, that's how dehydrated she was.

She had one more giant puke fest the next day at Lily's birthday party and after that she got better quickly. She caught up on the sleep she had been losing and started to eat like she hadn't in months. By the time we headed home on Sunday she was back to her normal self.