A Night in the ER

Julia was sick this past weekend.

It started on Saturday morning

and when she still wasn't able to keep anything down

on Tuesday, we called the doctor.

They told us we needed to take her to the hospital--

four days was too long without fluids.

So Tuesday night around 6pm we first stopped by the Instacare.

The doctor's office had instructed us

to first question the Instacare as to whether or not

they were able to give a pediatric IV.

They weren't.

So we headed to the ER.

Kids under 12 weren't allowed past the waiting room

(except as a patient)

because of possible exposure to the H1N1 flu.

So Derek stayed in the waiting room with Ethan

while I went back with Julia.

I was really impressed with how quickly they took care of us.

The nurse took us right back,

and we saw the doctor within 5 minutes.

They took some blood for testing,

and started an IV.

Julia wasn't thrilled with this part,

she squeezed my hand really hard,

but she was so brave and didn't even cry.

They inserted some anti-nausea medicine into her IV.

And let Julia have a soda 10 minutes later.

(She was SO thirsty!)

I was able to text Derek so he knew what was going on.

Julia had been instructed to take a sip of her soda every 5 minutes.

So every minute or so she would ask me if she could have another drink.

Soon I started letting her have 2-3 sips at a time because she wasn't having any trouble

keeping it down.

Julia was very happy when they let her watch tv

Derek took Ethan to get some food, and then dropped him off at my parents' house and came back over to the hospital to stay with us. When Julia's test results came back the doctor came in and told us that she was extremely dehydrated, most kids had to be hospitalized when at this point of dehydration. He told us that he was going to give her the full bag of IV fluids instead of half as he had originally planned. After hearing this we were SO glad that we had taken her in!

The IV took a couple of hours, and they finally let us go home around 10:00. It was amazing how different her appearance was after the IV. Before she had large black circles under her eyes, and her skin seemed almost sunken in. After she looked a lot more like herself-- just a bit tired. We were grateful that they had let us take Julia home rather than keeping her in the hospital overnight.

Julia is now pretty much back to normal, and we are SO glad!!!