We're home

If Bogie hadn't gotten a Sunday paper this morning, I'd have no idea what day it is, it has been THAT kind of week.
For those of you in the know, we came home from the hospital this afternoon, and he's doing great so far. For those of you that have no clue what I'm talking about, I'll back up.

2 weeks ago we all got colds (D first, and then he generously shared) and we've all been getting over that ever since. For the past week D's appetite had been diminishing each day until he was only eating crackers, and then Tuesday afternoon he threw up all of the greek yogurt I had just given him. He seemed to cheer up a bit after that, but shortly before midnight he woke up, threw up in his crib, and kept vomiting every 5-10 minutes. We took him to the ER where they decided he had something viral and sent us home with an anti-nausea medication. He seemed to perk up each time we gave him the medicine, but he still wasn't eating anything but crackers and we were having a hard time getting him to drink the Pedialyte. We took him back to the Dr on Wednesday because the ER told us to follow up with his pediatrician. They came to the same conclusion ("something viral") and said push the liquids. Well, he kept going downhill after that until he was refusing both the crackers and Pedialyte, so we ended up back at the Dr friday morning where we were told to stop worrying so much about the lack of appetite and to keep pushing fluids. Except he was barely taking any liquids at that point, but when he showed an interest in some pear we were encouraged... except THAT came right back up so we headed back in to the Dr. He gave us 4 hours to get more liquids into him, (one cup an hour) and about 2 1/2 hours later we had barely been able to get anything into him so we called the Dr and told him we were headed into the hospital.

We checked in friday evening and they attempted to get an IV started, and by the 3rd attempt Mommy and Daddy were also in tears...there were 5 more attempts after that (with breaks in between), but the poor little guy was so dehydrated they couldn't get a good vein until they tried the foot. They got it right away and it was great, except D was wiggling so hard trying to get away that he wiggled it out. There was one more attempt on his elbow and then they gave up. There was some discussion of an NG tube, which Carl and I weren't thrilled about and were still trying to make up our minds about when D suddenly wanted all the Pedialyte we would give him (your prayers at work! I firmly believe that). He drank so much in the next 2 hours that they said he could go to sleep and they'd leave him alone until the morning where they'd reevaluate.
We then proceeded to have ups and downs all day where we thought we'd get to go home at lunchtime because he was doing so well, and then they decided he should eat something except 4 bites of rice and half a banana proved too much for his tummy because it came up an hour later and we were right back where we started. He was on a decline the rest of the day until the evening when he seemed to perk up a bit, took some crackers and started drinking more. He woke up twice during the night (2 am and 5 am) which he doesn't usually do, and each time he chugged from the Pedialyte box like it was his job. He had 3 more boxes Sunday morning and was working on his fourth by lunchtime where we had a couple thumbnail sized bites of mashed potato. He wanted more but I didn't want to push it (he'd already eaten 3 packs of crackers) and when those stayed down and his blood and urine tests from that morning came back clear they said we could go home!

He's been more himself today than he has in a week, there was even a wrestling match with Daddy and ZaZa on the floor! Speaking of which, I missed her a lot. She went to the Zoo on Friday with her Auntie (technically MY auntie) and she had a blast! She was full of stories about the zoo, showing us her map and tiger mask and the little zippered pouch full of animals. I have it on good authority that the monkeys were her favorite (shocking, I know) I'm very happy she was having a good time because the rest of us weren't. Not gonna lie though, that's the most rest I've ever gotten in a hospital...must be because it's Pediatrics and they know better than to change the trash can liners at 3 am (yes, that actually happened to me during a hospital stay).

So I know that it's Sunday because of the paper, but other than that my weekend just disappeared. But it's all good because my boy's drinking his Pedialyte, his sunny disposition has returned, he even pooped today! Which after having had nothing but crackers for 3 days is quite the feat, let me tell you. My sister's home from the Philippines (missions trip), my brother's home from Ireland (class trip) and there are cinnamon rolls on the menu for breakfast tomorrow. And now I'm going to go take my contacts out for the first time in a week, and try to get some sleep before my early birds get me up at 6 am.