Poor Sick Boy

Our poor Nolan had a rough several days last week (not to mention his sleep deprived parents!). 

Thursday night we put him to bed and he kept crying. normally we don't mind letting him cry for a few minutes, he always falls asleep soon after, But something must have felt off to us this time because after about a minute Justin went in to check on him and he had thrown up! I think he threw up one more time that night, but by morning he seemed to be acting like himself so we decided to send him to Jeanni's and head to work. I asked her to let me know if he seemed sick and I'd come home right away, but nothing. She said he acted fine the whole day. So fine that we decided to go out to dinner for our normal Friday date night and even made a stop at the park to play on our way home! He acted totally normal the whole time!

But once again, about a minute after we put him down to bed that night he threw up again! So strange that it seemed to just be at night. We were up several times that night and he threw up one more time Sat morning, plus a bit of the runs. Yikes. Poor guy. We would have done anything to help him feel better and it's maddening as a parent to realize there isn't much you can do while they're throwing up.

This is mostly what our Saturday consisted of.

We called a nurses hotline and they said he probably just got a bug that's going around and suggested we give him pedialyte or gatorade. The only problem was he wouldn't touch any of it! We even tried to trick him and put a clearish-white gatorade in his bottle like it was water or milk. He took one sip, made a face, and shoved the bottle back at us. I felt pretty bad because he didn't trust us for days!! We tried to give him water in his bottle a few days later and he would not believe us! This only added to the problem because he really needed to drink!

Saturday night the poor guy woke up several times choking and dry heaving which was so terrible. It was so hard to watch him be so sick and not be able to do anything, or to rush him to the bathroom and shove his head in the toilet and he didn't understand why :( 

Sunday afternoon he seemed to start being himself and didn't throw up anymore so we decided not to take him to the doctor first thing Monday morning as planned. In fact, Monday was Memorial Day and I even went on a hike with friends because it seemed like things were going well and he just needed rest. However, by early evening we realized that he really hadn't peed at all that day and what was in his diaper was orange (he had eaten nothing that would cause that to happen so we assumed it was just really concentrated urine which scared us). All the doctor's offices and child quick cares were closed, but I called the on call pediatrician who suggested we take him to the hospital.

It's so hard trying to figure out what to do during times like these. Do I take him in? Am I overreacting? Maybe if we can just get him to drink he'll be ok. After debating for a long time we decided to see how he did during the night and if there was still no pee in his diaper in the morning we'd take him in. He woke up crying at 5am and no pee when I checked so we took him up to Primary Children's.

They told us he was definitely dehydrated, but only mildly (although our pediatrician told us it was really good that we took him in when we did because you really don't want to wait until it gets worse. Then it becomes a several nights stay at the hospital instead of a few hours). They had us try to give him gatorade before doing the IV but of course he wouldn't take it. I was ready to see him feel better and back to his normal self, but I knew it'd be hard to watch him get an IV :(

Justin held him and talked to him while they put it in. Of course he was already on edge from being sick so when they poked the IV in he just screamed. It seemed to me like they were taking forever to get the dang thing in and I kept saying so to Justin. I was like, "these guys suck at this!" haha. So Justin had to tell me that if I needed to leave the room I should just do that. Oops.

Well what do you expect when they're poking my baby?!! ☺

After they got it in and taped it down really well they left us and we let him watch as much tv on our phones as he wanted. He really didn't like the big thing on his hand, but got used to it after about 20 min and even learned how to navigate the phone with it on.

It only took about 45 min of the IV for him to start acting like himself which made us so happy. He even started eating some crackers and drinking some water.

After a few hours we were on our way home. 

But it wasn't quite over yet, he threw up on the way home! Argh! (and scary since I didn't think that would happen). But I think it was just because he had gotten so many fluids at once, because that was the last of it.

Justin went in for half a day of work and I stayed home with Nolan. Paul was so sweet and showed up to check up on his pal Nolan. He even went to the store and got some grapes, bananas, and sprite (the bananas were because Nolan asked for them, but we didn't have any). Too sweet.

Starting to feel better and waving to his adoring fans ☺

     

Oh it was so nice to see him be himself again. And after several nights without much sleep, we were ready to catch up! Not to mention all the laundry that needed to be done. Ick. We also had to transition Nolan back to his own bed since he had gotten so used to sleeping with us (it was just easier because we could hear him more easily and get to him faster with him right there). We of course waited a few nights to make sure he was totally back to himself, but then we had to show some tough love. He was NOT happy the first couple of nights and thought if he screamed loud enough we'd change our mind and let him in our bed. We needed sleep though so we held strong. It really only took two bouts of screaming and he was back to his normal sleeping routine.