First Trip to the ER

Cate made her first trip to the emergency room early yesterday morning. About an hour after she went to bed on Friday night, we heard the unmistakable sound of her getting sick coming through the monitor. We got her cleaned up and back in bed and didn't have another incident until about 4 hours later.

Of course, Eric had to leave the house yesterday at 3:30 in the morning to set up and run the charity 20-miler (everyone running The Flying Pig Marathon for a charity does their longest training run together). With 600 runners and walkers expected, there was no way he could stay home.

I thought Cate and would be okay. She was sound asleep when he left. And then the fun began. She woke up getting sick again and could not stop. Every 15 minutes I was cleaning up a mess. I broke down and called the pediatrician because I noticed Cate's diapers were bone dry. The pediatrician on call said that with her vomiting spells getting closer together and dry diapers, that she would need to be seen. It was up to me whether I wanted to take her right away to Children's or wait until 8am to bring her into the office. After a couple more rounds of getting sick, I opted for the hospital. Cate was getting really pale and restless.

Thankfully, my mother-in-law didn't mind making a 25 minute drive from her house to accompany us to the ER. There was no way I could've done it on my own, especially since Cate got sick on the way to the hospital.

Once there, the Pedialyte they gave her came right back up, so they moved on to the bigger drugs. A dose of Zofran helped to settle her stomach and helped her keep some Pedialyte down. But then she spiked a 102.4 fever! Tylenol was ordered and then we played the waiting game. Her fever needed to come down and the Pedialyte needed to stay down before we could go home.

An hour or so later, Cate woke up, happy as could be. She waved to all the nurses, color started to return to her face, and she began to babble. We headed home where I gave her a bath, some more Pedialyte, and put her down for a nap. She slept for 3 hours, got up for about 5, during which we were able to get her to eat some applesauce, crackers, and plain pasta, before heading back to bed, exhausted, at 6.

She didn't make a peep until around 8 this morning. And while she is still not herself, she doesn't have a fever anymore and is semi-interested in eating and playing. Mostly though, she just wants to cuddle with mommy and daddy, read books, and watch Baby Einstein DVDs. We are giving her all of the cuddly love we have. Hopefully she'll feel even better tomorrow.

~Melody :-)

PS...Happy 14 months Cate! We'll take your picture later when you've had some more rest.