Sick Little Angel

 My poor little angel has had the stomach flu for the last two weeks (more formally called gastroenteritis).  She has been so sick and it's been breaking my heart.

Thursday night/Friday morning at 3AM Melia started vomiting profusely.  When I ran into her room, she was literally swimming in it.  SO GROSS!  We stripped her down and got her right in the bath.  

She was so tired and sick I had to get in with her.  That was super fun when she vomited in the bath...I had to drain the tub and start the bath over.  Luckily she got clean and only her ankles were still in the tub when she vomited a third time.

She and I went out to the couch for the rest of the night.  She was so lethargic she kept falling asleep but every 15 minutes almost right on the dot, she would wake up, vomit, cry, and fall back to sleep.  After about 3 hours of this it turned to ever 10 minutes.  It went that way for about another 2-3 hours and then every half hour for an hour or two.  She ended up vomiting about 36 times in 7 hours.  Finally around 10 or 11 AM I was able to put her back to bed in her crib.  Look a my poor sweet little angel with a dry red face from all the wet wipes I had to use to wipe her face after every time she threw up.  :(

All day Friday she was lethargic and she vomited periodically.  She slept relatively well Friday night though and Saturday we had to go up to Bountiful to take a family "cousins picture" with all my nieces and nephews.  My brother's kids were in town and my oldest nephew had just arrived home from his mission and we didn't know when we'd have another opportunity to do the picture.  She seemed ok most of the day on Saturday except she had really bad diarrhea.  

Sunday morning she woke up and acted like she was going to throw up.  I wasn't sure if I should go to my nephew's homecoming but he's like a brother to me and Mike convinced me that we really needed to go.  We sat on the second row and halfway through Jett's homecoming talk in church Melia starts barfing.  I grabbed her and ran out and the whole way out she was barfing into her blanket.  After sacrament meeting was over I told Mike I wanted to take Melia to the hospital.  On our way to the car, I threw up in the parking lot.  I was down on my hands and knees vomiting for a while.  UGH!  I was pretty sure it was just pregnancy, and not sickness.

We went to Primary Children's hospital.  We had to wait there for a while before they could get a room for us to go back in.  They used a catheter to get urine from Melia and also drew some blood and then hooked her up to an IV to give her fluids.  After a while (QUITE A WHILE) the results came back.  Her urine was fine but her blood showed that she was very dehydrated and her glucose and sodium levels were super low.  The scariest part, though, was that her bicarbonate level was so low.  It's supposed to be 20 and if it is under 15 they want to keep the child in the hospital overnight.  Well Melia's level was 11.  So of course, she needed to stay overnight.

The IV fluids were making her puff up so much it was scary.  Her feet were like water balloons and her poor eyes and cheeks were so puffy she did not look like herself.  The doctor said it is not normal but it was alright.  They said because her levels were so low it would be too dangerous to take her off the IV's.  Look at my poor sad baby in her metal hospital crib.

The best daddy ever.

This picture reminded me so much of the ones from the hospital when Melia was born.  But look how much my sweet girl has grown.

Watching this little one hooked up to all those tubes was just breaking my heart.

It was a relief to see her sleeping soundly though.

She was so puffy though it really was scaring me!

She's showing off her IV hand.  I wish this picture weren't so blurry.  She doesn't even look like herself though, huh?!

Look at those cheeks.

Mike left around 10 PM or so to go home and get some sleep because there was really only room for one person to stay over anyway.  The nurses kept coming in every so often to check her vitals and she'd wake up every time and then be needy for a while before being able to go back to sleep.  The problem, however, was that every time I woke up (being pregnant and all) I needed to go to the bathroom.  Unfortunately there was not a bathroom in our room and I had to go down the hall to the nurses' station to go to the bathroom.  It was a major pain.  Around 3 AM after the nurse had left I realized I needed to go the bathroom SO bad.  I was also not feeling well.  I called the nurse to come and hold Melia while I went because she was whining and wouldn't let me leave.  

I went down to the hall to the bathroom and when I finally got there I was so nauseous!  I immediately dropped to my knees and started vomiting up the great dinner Mike's mom had sent with Mike to the hospital.  It was my FAVORITE meal and it really SUCKED to throw it up.  Anyway, because I am pregnant and needed to go to the bathroom SO BAD, I ended up COMPLETELY wetting my pants.  It was so horrible and embarrassing, but there was absolutely nothing I could do.  

After about 15 minutes in the bathroom throwing up, I returned to the room.  I guess the other nurses at the nurses' station had come and told my nurse that I was throwing up because she was pretty concerned when I got back to the room.  She knew I was pregnant so I told her what had happened...  She asked if I needed her to get me some sweat pants and of course I did.  I had nothing to change into.  I thought that my pants had not gotten wet, just my underwear, but when I went to walk back to the room I noticed the pants were soaked all the way down the left leg.  How embarrassing!  I had heard of people wetting their pants when they were pregnant, but I always thought that was just weird and would never happen to me.  My sister in law wet her pants the first time she came over to my house and met me and had to go back to Mike's parents to get a change of clothes and then come back.  I thought that was so weird.  Now I can sympathize much better.  :)

I continued vomiting for the rest of the night and it was a pretty horribly miserable night sleeping on a pull out bed in the hospital.  Finally around 10 AM Melia was holding down fluids and crackers so they sent us home.  Monday Melia did pretty well on clear fluids and crackers.  Tuesday they had said we could return her to normal foods, but we held off until the evening.  Just before bed I gave her a 6 oz. bottle of milk.  BIG MISTAKE.  She woke up a few hours later vomiting everywhere.  Apparently she'd developed a temporary lactose intolerance.  

One thing that I grew to LOVE were these Pedialyte Freezer Pops.  When she was so dehydrated, it was essential to give her just a sip of fluids every few minutes but not too much or she'd throw it up.  Eventually she was so thirsty she just wanted to drink it all but I couldn't let her.  So giving her these freezer pops was perfect because she really couldn't get that much at a time but having her be in control appeased her.

Wednesday she seemed to be pretty good, at least compared to the last few days so I thought she was getting better.  That night we started her on Lactaid because she'd lost so much weight she still needed the milk fat.  She seemed fine that night and Thursday she was doing well.  She was in a relatively good mood until the afternoon.  Then she just started whining and it was such a sad whine it was breaking my heart.  I went to her and bent down and hugged her.  All the sudden she just started vomiting profusely.  I was dripping in it from the top of my head to the tips of my toes.  Wow...

Mike went out of town on Wednesday.  He claims that he needed to go, but I think he just couldn't handle his wife and baby being sick anymore.  Somehow though, Melia in her sick state, knew he was leaving.  He was getting his bags together and was in his work clothes ready to leave when Melia RAN to the garage door and sat herself down right in front of it blocking his way.  And look at that little face she was giving him.  Aww.  "Daddy, don't leave me."

He had to coax her away from the door.  It was pretty sweet.

Needless to say, Melia had A LOT of baths throughout the week.

Yes, she always bathes with her toothbrush.  She loves to brush her teeth in the bathtub.

Hey, at least we know one thing that can make her happy, even when she's sick.  She LOVES the bath!