Just Spent 4 Days in the Hospital

Friday night, my husband and I heard our daughter (who is 4) screaming and crying upstairs.  We run up and immediately upon stepping foot on the top step, we were greeted with the most awful smell ever.  She had thrown up…ALL.OVER.HER.ROOM.  It was horrible.  Luckily my husband was home.  I do NOT handle puke at all.  Dan went to her and I ran downstairs to grab Lysol.  I knew if I was going to be of any help…I had to start spraying that smell away.  We got her in the shower, cleaned her up and that poor thing threw up repeatedly until she had nothing left in her…and then she tried to throw up more.

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Things got worse and worse as Saturday went on.  We finally dropped our son off at my inlaws house to paint Easter eggs and we took Bella to Urgent Care.  They swabbed her throat (negative), tested her urine (mixed culture…or something like that), and we left there with a prescription for Bactrim for a urinary tract infection…which let me tell you, getting a 4 year old to pee in a cup…so not fun!

We wake up on Easter morning and Bella continues to throw up, but this time she tells us that her back is hurting and just lays on the floor while we go through her Easter basket with her.  We quickly run to my inlaws house so the kids can see them and then drop Zack off at my parents house and take Bella up to the ER.  I was convinced she had a kidney infection and being someone that went through a kidney stone episode, I was afraid for her.  What that poor child went through the next 10 hours at the ER was absolutely heartbreaking.

One of the first things they did was feel her stomach.  Upon touching her stomach, Bella was wincing on the table.  The doctor told us that he would like to repeat the urine sample, only he wanted to get a sterile sample by cathing her.  My heart literally sank.  I have been cathed before and holy crap…it hurts.  She screamed and cried through the whole ordeal which seemed to take 10 minutes, but in reality the nurses were done in like 15 seconds.  It took everything I had in me to not cry with her.  The urine sample came back and she had NO infection…kind of pissed me off that I had just spent $15 on Bactrim, which I now have to throw away…but whatever.

So now that they knew that she did not have a bladder infection, the doctor threw out at us that he was suspecting an appendicitis.  Rather than go immediately to a cat scan, the doctor wanted to try and rule out an appendicitis by doing an x-ray and ultra sound first.  Neither of those showed much, and you couldn’t see the appendix in the ultra sound because Bella had so many gas pockets in her stomach.  Now we were left with the decision if we wanted to go with a cat scan and all that radiation.  Seeing how she reacted to having her abdomen touched, we felt that the cat scan was worth doing.  But would you believe that dang cat scan came back and her appendix did NOT show up on it?  WTH?

At this point, not only was Bella throwing up, but she had blow out diarrhea.  I basically told the ER doctor that I was NOT leaving that hospital…we just spent 10hrs in that ER room while our daughter continued to dehydrate…they were admitting us.  The doctor agreed and we were taken upstairs to our room.  I never in a million years thought we would be in the hospital from Easter Sunday until Wednesday afternoon.

Basically, what kept us in the hospital so long was the fact that Bella could not stay hydrated without the IV.  We would try to get her to drink and she would refuse…and if you know my daughter…she’s as stubborn as they come.  But, personally I think she realized that her stomach was hurting and when she added more to it…she either threw up, had diarrhea, or her stomach hurt really bad.  So rather than send us home on Tuesday…the doctor decided to hook Bella back up to the IV and see if that gets her over the hump.  And it did!  She woke up this morning feeling GREAT!  Drank like a champ…wanted to eat like a champ…and we were out of there by 2:30pm!

Let me tell you, this hospital trip was definitely a trip.  First of all, immediately upon entering our room, a nurse put a bracelet on Bella’s ankle that made it so alarms would sound if she tried to step foot off the floor.  That bracelet was Bella’s nemesis.  The entire time we were there, she tried to get that bracelet off.  Monday she messed with it enough that a nurse came in and had to check it because it was showing up on their computers as “tampered with”.  But on Tuesday night she finally did it.  She messed with that bracelet enough that alarms started sounding on our floor, security guards came running, and our whole floor was on lock down.

Some other things that happened while we were at the hospital:

• Fire alarms went off for about an hour and the loud speaker system alerted everyone that there was a fire in the ER.  Um…fire is my number one fear and all I could think of was “why the hell are they not getting us out of here”?
• A man came to the ER after eating rat poison and his puke became so toxic that a haz-mat team had to come and take care of the situation.
• Nurse Kellie was such a “you know what” that I had to try my hardest not to glare at her when she came into the room.  She was so condescending and rude…I really wanted to smack her by the end of our stay.

Some highlights of our stay:

• The bed.  If she could have brought that bed home with us, she would have.  I think I actually got motion sick watching her ride up and down and folding herself up.
• Her best friend (and preschool boyfriend…ahhh young love!) came to visit her and brought her all the essentials for a successful hospital stay…toys…coloring books…crayons…pop rocks (can’t wait until Bella tries those!)…and most importantly, her friend there to play with.
• A balloon and flowers sent up to the room from her 4 year preschool class
• Both sets of grandparents, her Auntie, and her brother coming to see her.

I am SOOOO glad she is feeling better.  It was so hard seeing her go through all she went through from being cathed, getting an IV, enduring the super loud cat scan machine, and Nurse “you know what’s” rude bedside manner.  Her final diagnosis, gastroenteritis.  Now I just wait to see how horrible this hospital bill will be.  I swear they should have a ticker over the door with rotating numbers to show you how far into debt you are going.