Poor Addison!

Headed home!!

Eating a bite of pancake....these are the first bites that started it all! I ran around showing all the nurses and we all rejoiced!

The wagon that was our BFF.

Our first taste of freedom. She felt so bad but this was actually her happy face!!

Friday morning after 4 bags of liquids...she was still so out of it and sleepy. However she had just peed so I was so happy when I took this!


Getting our first batch!

Being ticked at everyone. I couldn't really blame her.

Longest post ever......

The past few days have not been the most fun around here. Poor little Addison has been battling a diarrhea virus that finally did her in and landed her in the hospital for a few days. Let me tell you, I never doubted how hard it would be to ever see your children sick and have to be in the hospital but you truly don't understand it until you have been there. Because I don't scrapbook or anything this is going to be a pretty detailed version of what happened just so I will have it written down.
First of all if you ever told me that Addison would be the one of my children hospitalized for not eating or drinking I would have laughed in your face. Trey is MUCH harder to get to eat than her! It all started 2 weeks ago when Addison started having diarrhea. The diarrhea got worse as the week went on but she was acting fine and playing great. She ran a low fever a few days off and on but nothing serious. I really assumed she just had some sort of viral thing running through her or even cutting teeth. Well, Wednesday night I checked her diaper before bed and she threw up. Wednesday was also the first day she had stopped eating much or drinking. I think all day Wednesday she ate some popcorn, oreos, and a little oatmeal (random but it's what she wanted). However, she drank some ginger ale and water and never complained of her stomach hurting. After she threw up though I put her back in bed and she went back to sleep. 20 minutes later I heard throwing up again so I ran in and grabbed her and put her in bed with us. That's where the real fun started. She was so thirsty (knowing now, that's one of the first signs of dehydration) but she threw up every sip she took. We battled all night long because she kept wanting to gulp liquids but she was getting so sick off them. I told J.O. I feel kinda guilty for trying to hold her back because I had no clue how dehydrated she must be getting. The problem was she was throwing up so much that I was scared to let her keep gulping water. (I was giving her liquids but in very small amounts and things like ice chips thinking she would keep it down..no luck).
Finally around 6am Thursday, I put her in her crib and got ready to take her to the doctor first thing. I had NO doubt she was either already dehydrated or getting to the point quickly. After a big fight with the receptionist she finally agreed to let me come in at 9am to see our doctor. Addison slept most of the time we were there and really wasn't too interested in drinking. The doctor told us to monitor Addison for the afternoon and evening and take her in to Springhill for some fluids if necessary. She thought it was a little too early to go now but the whole time I had such a gut feeling that she was already needing something. This is where I start feeling guilty....I ignored the feeling and headed home to get Trey from school. Meanwhile Addison threw up again in the car and fell asleep. When we got home, I gave her a bath and she drank a little water and ginger ale and went back to sleep. I was still worried so I started getting on the phone. Finally, around 1:30 my brother in law encouraged me to take her to Childrens because dehydration is nothing to mess around with. We headed up there and thank goodness we did. The gave her a bag of liquids in the ER and told us they were going to discharge us once she proved she would drink and pee. Well, after that bag she finally smiled a couple of times and took a few drinks of water. The doctor came back and told us we could leave but I just still felt uncomfortable. I told him I would really rather wait until she peed. He thought I was crazy for wanting to stay longer but he hooked her up to another bag of liquids and told us he had no doubt she was about to start peeing a lot. I thanked him and told him that would be awesome.
Well, at the end of bag 2 still no pee and still no activity out of Addison. Seeing that, he said his boss recommended we move upstairs and be admitted. I agreed. We got settled into our room about 10:30pm and I mentioned to the nurse that after 2 bags of liquid there was still no urine. She told me we had until midnight and then she would be very worried. Well, at midnight still nothing so she went and called the doctor. He ordered a 3rd bag of liquids and blood work. The nurse assured me the 3rd bag would do it. She continued to check her diaper every 30-45 mins and at 3:30am when there was still no urine she got nervous again and called the doctor. He ordered the 4th and final bag of liquids and told the nurse if she doesn't pee they would have to resort to other measures. I was too scared to ask what those were! He came by the room at 4:30am to check on her and I told him I thought she may have peed. He went and got the nurse and he wanted to know immediately if it was wet. The nurse came and took it off (Addison slept through all this...that's how out of it she was) and started cheering and got so happy. I think it was at this point I realized how bad she was.
The next morning the doctors made their rounds and all of them commented on how bad they expected her to be from the comments left in her chart. She still wouldn't touch anything to drink so we had to stay another night. The problem was because of the diarrhea she was on isolation contact so she couldn't go play with toys, go down to the lobby, or even leave the room at first. It was a long few days. The wonderful news is she is feeling much better and I couldn't be more thankful for very proactive doctors and nurses at childrens (even though the ER doctor tried to send my baby home without peeing...I think he learned really quick that between me and my mom she wasn't going anywhere until she peed!) It's really such an awesome place but I hope to never go back! :)

*Here's my PSA for dehydration...DO NOT mess around! I am trying not to feel guilty for waiting until Thursday afternoon when I was worried that morning, but my doctor assured me she was fine. Next time I will trust my gut and go at the FIRST sign of dehydration which for us would have been the extreme thirst early Thursday morning. Sometimes even though they may not have all the physical signs of dehydration (my doctor did the skin test etc..) they can still be very dehydrated.