Day 1, Part 1 - Emergency Department & Admission

Day 1 kicked off in the wee hours, as we were brought to our ER room just after midnight Wednesday night/Thursday morning.  After about two hours of vitals-taking and nothing-doing, we had a plan.  Get an X-Ray (to check on tube placement) and get a Dye Study (another check for tube placement).  Meanwhile, Nurse Tim confirmed that CHOP can't come up with any dye-free tylenol or motrin (This is why I bring my own) and took our stash with him to be verified by the pharmacy.

note the totally unofficial drugs in the background

So off we went to Radiology around 2am, and boy did he love that.  Except I'm totally kidding, because he hated it.  Back in Room 11, Nurse Tim showed up to take some samples to test for blood in stomach contents and stool.  Negative for both, whew.  The X-Rays came back and indicated proper placement of the tube, so we went back for a dye study around 3:30am - I guess it's a more reliable way to check placement?  That one looked good too - no issues to report, except maybe that he had some constipation.

Gee, I hope nobody sticks anything awful up my diaper area...

Never fear, Nurse Tim is here.  With two enemas.  At 4am.  Holy mother of god.  I'll spare you the gory details - suffice it to say that a change of BED was required. 

Not sleeping at 4am

Around then, I emailed my boss to let her know that I was still in the ER and wouldn't make it into work.  Panic is starting to set in, because this situation is chillingly familiar.  I need to still be employed at the end of this hospital stay.

The boy nods off briefly at 5am.  And yes, those are "Taddy Shoes!"

Sleeping like a baby.  A baby who is likely to poop the bed.

Not having slept in days - like, literally days - I finally nodded off in the pooped bed, only to wake up at 5:30 because some doctor is holding a phone in my face, saying the GI on call wants to talk to me.  I wish I'd written down her name - the conversation wasn't good.  The gist was that she didn't think we needed to be in the hospital, and the best thing would be for us to go home and see our own (CHOP) GI on Friday.  She asked me, point blank, "Really, what's your concern here?"  AYFKM?  My concern is that my child is both dehydrating and starving to death.  My concern is that I can't provide care for him anymore.  My concern is that NO ONE IS HELPING ME.  I said that while I wasn't opposed to going home, because home is awesome, I WAS opposed to leaving with a child that I cannot feed.  Especially when our own GI's office told us that in all likelihood, they would be unable to help us much in the office, and that we belonged at the hospital.  Out at Exton, our own doctor can order tests.  Here at Main, these doctors can actually perform them.  I put my foot down.  We aren't leaving without answers.  You have to help us.

So we agreed to try some feeds.  Around 7am, we had a 2oz Pedialyte feed.  It went okay - and at this point I was a little bit worried that they were going to think I was a crazy hypochondriac.  At 8am, right at the tail end of the Pedialyte feed, we started a 7oz Elecare feed.  Half an hour or so into that feed, the doctor came in to check on us.  Aidan was sleeping restlessly, but not crying and certainly not vomiting.  So far so good, I reported.

Doctor Disbelieving wasn't three steps out the door when Aidan bolted upright in bed, coughed, and spewed forth EVERYTHING.  Thankfully, my bucket-grabbing reflexes are getting pretty good these days.  Nikki went for the nurse, and it took half a glance at Aidan filling his puke bucket for her to confirm that he'd be admitted.  Doctor Disbelieving couldn't argue at this point.

The nurse placed an IV, drew blood for labs, and started fluids.  As this was happening, I started to notice that, as usual, Aidan's body was reacting to the feed and the vomiting.  He gets bright red cheeks, a cough, a runny nose, and his body gets hot.  VERY hot.  A temp check clocked him in at 102.5, and a dose of motrin (and an hour later, a dose of tylenol) did little to bring it down.  Poor bugaboo.

Elecare out, IV in, waiting for a room

We hung out in the ER until about 10am, waiting for a room and a crib - and finally - TRANSFER TIME.