2/29/2008

What a week!

Let’s start with Monday: Max had his usual CBCs after school and we learned that he needed another red blood transfusion.

So we came back on Tuesday for the blood and spent the afternoon in clinic pinking-up his cheeks. That night he woke up at 3:30am and began throwing up every 20-30 minutes.

Wednesday morning we headed back to the clinic with a throw-up bin in Max’s lap and no where to leave Nic (mom and dad are not answering their phones!) who woke up with a fever that morning (no feverish kids are allowed in the Onc clinic!). We had to stop in a Jack in the Box parking lot shortly after leaving the house so Max could throw-up – yet again. I couldn’t get in touch with my Mom and Dad who usually take Nic so I phoned my sister Randee at work and gave her a job: come get Nic and find out where mom and dad are, because now I’m worried about them! (I can’t quite explain to you how truly lucky we are to have family on-call, ready and willing to help us in any way they can. Thanks, mi familia! PS – mom and dad were grocery shopping and feeling fine; they kept Nic for the rest of the day.) Max kept track and by 10:30am he had tossed his cookies (if we could only get him to eat cookies!) twelve times! He was looking very green. Poor guy. The doctor decided he had a viral bug in his tummy and there’s not much you can do except keep hydrated, which was not possible at home because he couldn’t keep anything down – not even a sip of water. He was given IV hydration for the day and sent home hoping that it was a one day bug. Nope… Max went to bed really early and slept well until about 2:00 am when he had a Code Brown (poo). No diarrhea thank goodness. Nic felt crappy all night and was up from 11:00 – 4:00am. Hannah also made a visit to our room due to a bad dream.

Mommy and Daddy were crazy tired Thursday morning when Max woke us up with a technicolor yawn. Back to the hospital again for more all-day IV hydration. I took Nic to the pediatrician while Nana sat with Max in clinic to see what his problem was: double ear infection. Ouch! Max finished up his daily hydration and we headed home late afternoon. Max continued to barf on and off through out the evening but somehow got a pretty decent nights sleep until… I dunno… 4:00am? Who’s keeping track? We can’t anymore.

So now it’s Friday and Max is still a sicky. He takes a sip of water and several sips of something in an odd color come right back up. He spent the day in clinic again getting hydrated. The question this morning was what do we do over the weekend? If we get admitted and stay the night there will be a room for sure in the ward. If not, we can’t be guaranteed that they would be able to hydrate Max. Luckily, Dr. Roberts came up with the (obvious to me now) plan of having HomeCare set us up with an IV pump and gatorade water to administer at home. Never thought I’d be happy about having an IV pump in my house…

We’re home for the weekend. Max hasn’t thrown up since this morning but has a lot of “I think I’m gonna” moments that are not fun at all. He had some interest in food today (wow!) and even ate a few chow mein noodles for dinner which was surprising. Hoping this stomach bug is working itself out of Max’s little tummy and that tomorrow brings a barf free day!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You are amazing!!!! I read your post about a miserable week yet I'm chuckling! You always find the humor in the situation...good for you! Praying Max gets over this bug pronto, Nic's ears are better, and Hannah has sweet dreams. Actually, I hope you all have sweet, 8 hour dreams tonight...sleep is one thing that isn't overrated!
lisa

Kevin Seidel said...

technicolor yawn. good one melis. you guys are amazing.

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