My No Good, Very Bad Day…

So yesterday Adam woke up at 545 after sleeping all night long without a peep! Ya!

And then as we were sitting and having milk and watching CBeeBies I started to feel headachy and nauseous, the nausea a sure sign a migraine was building. I reflected on what Simon might have on at work and, when he got up, asked him if he might stay home. He said it wasn’t a problem so I headed back to bed. I woke up about an hour later, still headachy and still nauseous and headed to take some migraleave and went back to bed.

When I woke up around 1130 I was right as rain. Whew! Dodged that bullet.

After lunch I had a nice long bath and then Adam and I played and Simon went to have a sleep. We like naps in this house!

At around 345, as we were settling in to watch some CBeeBies, Adam threw up. Violently. I yelled for Simon who came running and we began the clean up. Simon was looking at the vomit and I said ‘why are you inspecting it?!!’ and he said ‘It looks like blood!’ I said ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ and continued to clean up. I should have looked.

Adam was running no fever so we figured it was just a fluke, too much food, something a bit off or similar. And he was acting fine, dancing around, being himself And then he threw up again. I was in the kitchen when I heard him wretch and came over to where he was with Simon and there was blood going down his face. I panicked and went right to the phone and dialled 999.

As an aside, in the US when you dial 911, you are not asked what service you need. It’s on central dispatch centre. I know this because I rang them once when a child was hit by a car outside my apartment. Anyway, in the UK first you have to ask for the right service and then give that service all of your information. I was stunned they needed that. Can’t they trace by telephone?

In any case I threw on some clothes and was getting Adam re-dressed when the EMT’s showed up. It was less than 10 minutes and Simon and I were very impressed. It was two gentlemen and they were very nice, listening to what happened. They decided the best thing was to take Adam to Royal Children’s to be checked out. So we finished gathering our things and off we all went in the ambulance with no sirens, of course!

Once there we were taken straight into triage, thanks to coming in by ambulance. The Triage nurse did the normal checks and said it would be about 45 minutes and if he threw up again, tell her. I changed his nappy, putting the pad they give you for urine collection into it. And we sat down.

Once again, Adam seemed fine, playing with some of the toys there. And then he wasn’t. And then he barfed. It was all clear liquid with no blood, but Simon went and told the triage nurse and we held onto the pan he had used to vomit in. A little got on his clothes but I decided to wait to change him as it had been hard to tell how much blood before as it had soaked into clothes and Daddy!

It was about 45 minutes when we were called back and then waited about 2o minutes more. Why do they do that? Why call you back if you’re just going to sit in an empty cubicle? Why not let the child continue to play until there is truly a doctor ready?

In any case another 15 – 20 minute wait and a doctor came in and took Adam’s history. Now Adam was born at the Royal and has been to their A&E 3 times now. Shouldn’t they have his history?!?

In any case, the doctor then felt his tummy, listened to his heart and lungs and looked in his ears and throat. As usual, Adam was fine until I put him on the exam table. I am really beginning to think he remembers, from 3 weeks old, when they had to hold him down and cut his foot for a blood test and he associates it with that damn table!

The doctor said his tummy was lovely and soft (lovely? 🙂 ) but his ears and throat were red. They wanted to test a urine sample (pee kid!) and his blood sugar (not sure why, forgot to ask) and see if he could keep some dioralyte down but she didn’t think it was anything more than an infection.

Once he had finally peed, and kept down the dioralyte we were out of there fairly quickly with some amoxicillian and the instruction that he’d probably throw up more but if there was no blood don’t worry, the blood was probably from a tear in his throat. Okay then.

So we headed home. Once there we tried to get him to have some toast, no go, and gave him some more dioralyte. He had a bath and his first does of antibiotics and, on the doctor’s advice, we tried some milk. Puke before he even had a sip.

So we cleaned up and tucked him into bed.

The next few hours he was very restless and then I heard little feet in the hall and retching. More puke, but wasn’t he clever to get out of bed first!

I got myself ready to bed and snuggled in next to him. At about 130 I hear ‘Mummy, water?’ So I hand him the water bottle I keep next to the bed. About 30 minutes later, puke. In bed.

Get Simon up, get us cleaned and the bed changed. Adam was fully awake by then so I brought him into the front room and gave him some more dioralyte. He started falling asleep and so we went back to bed.

Man, this is getting long.

Let me sum up:

Fine all night after 2a. Puked again after more antibiotics. Hmmmm. Rang GP, said to stop antib’s until fever was down (did I mention he now had a fever?) and vomiting and diarrhoea (did I mention the 4 totally liquid poos?) under control.

And he’s been fine since. Fever, yes, but bland food and juice is staying down.

Oh and I got to get my haircut, but not have my anniversary lunch. So it was, all in all, a decent, if puke and poo filled day.