Victor called me at 3am during the night on Saturday. I was going to tell him firmly that he needed to stop calling Momma and just sleep the rest of the night (we've been having quite a few wake-ups of late), but then I put my hand in something sticky on his bed.
Did you have yucky tummy, Bud?
Yes.
That's a good reason to call Mommy.
So I slept on the trundle in his room, and he had another throw up during the night. But he seemed pretty bright by morning and was taking sips of water and juice while we sent Daddy off to church and hung out together.
He even got half a piece of toast down, bite by bite, still feeling good through mid-day.
In the afternoon he threw up all the toast and juice.
I started the night on the trundle. And then realized I had my own yucky tummy. So Ben took the trundle, and I threw up five times through the night and was done with it. Rested and slept most of the day on Monday.
Victor threw up three times Sunday night ... and three times Monday morning. And then every hour in the afternoon. And then every half hour. After many calls to the pediatrician, hoping for a cancellation to bring Victor in to be seen in the evening, we decided to take Victor to the ER.
I fed Josiah and put him to bed, and then we bundled up and picked up Nana, who offered to go with me and Victor (bless her heart!). She drove so I could hold Victor's hand next to him in the back and hold the puke bucket.
The emergency room at Children's was packed. My heart just sank to see so many. But we were evaluated right away and settled in while Ben called around to the other children's hospitals to see if they might offer a shorter wait.
In the end, we gutted it out (how fitting that phrase!) until Victor was called back around 11:30pm. It was heart-wrenching, seeing him wretch and heave and then lie back and ask (in his most polite way) if he could please have a sip of juice. Over and over, he asked for juice, the poor boy, but he was throwing up too often to give him anything. He threw up 6 times in the waiting room.
By the time the doctor came he looked just terrible, pretty much the picture of all the bullet points next to the "dehydration" list on the hospital pamphlets ... eyes sunken, confused, limp, tired. He was asleep when I carried him back to our ER room and didn't wake up til we settled on the gurney together.
I was really nervous how he would do with the IV pokes. He's had a hard time the last few doctor visits where he got shots. But I prayed and sang and covered his eyes and talked about going to Grammy's house ... and he did perfect for the first poke (when they used a numbing medicine).
That vein blew. And the nurse said she couldn't numb anymore, because it made the veins more fragile. We talked about the purple popsicle he could eat after the medicine and water started going into his body.
He didn't even whimper for the second poke. That one blew too. So they called in reinforcements (a great big man who was the lead nurse in ER that night).
They thought the third poke had worked. But then when they started putting the meds in, it blew. Victor was still quiet, probably a combination of the Holy Spirit's kind intervention and his depleted condition...
For the fourth poke, they had to use Victor's hand (very painful), and I felt him wince when the needle went in. But he still didn't even wimper, and that IV held. That was when I could feel myself relaxing.
After 10 minutes, as promised, a huge purple popsicle was delivered, and Victor happily gobbled down morsel by morsel (I set my timer for 5 minutes between bites to begin). Then he asked for sips juice AND water.
At 1:30am the doctor came back and told us that Victor's blood work showed he was so far behind she was having him admitted. And she didn't know if he would even be ready to go home by the morning.
We sent Nana home then (what a gift she was to us!), and Victor and I got to ride together on a rolling bed ("It's kind of like my trundle!" he said) through the halls and up the elevator to the 7th floor. Finally Victor slept around 2am.
I was too keyed up to sleep. I talked with the doctor when he came around 3am. He recommended not bringing Josiah to the hospital so I could nurse him (since that's where all those bugs are that send people to the hospital). Victor was restless and would roll around and whimper frequently in his sleep. I had the nurse check his hand, which seemed to be bothering him, but everything was still good there.
Finally at 6am (as usual) he woke up and wanted to eat. I said we'd have to ask the nurse, and (when asked), he requested and was granted another purple popsicle.
At 7am, Ben brought Josiah to me, and I left him with Victor to feed Joey, take him home for a nap, and then figure out what to do. As it turned out, my parents headed up to help us out, so I was able to deliver Josiah to friends and re-join Victor and Ben in the early afternoon, and Grammy and Grandad picked up Josiah to put him down for his nap without me (a first for J ... the silly boy doesn't take a bottle).
The doctor was still not sure Victor was ready to go home, and then he had some major diarrhea, and it was settled that he would stay another night. Grammy kindly offered to stay overnight with him (I was pretty blitzed), and by this morning he was bouncing around the room and ready to come home.
Once again, God has been faithful and kind. We have another Ebenezer to look back on. Thanks, all who have prayed for us.
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