Valentines weekend at the Hospital

Eli started coming down with what I thought was just a cold 2 Saturdays ago, but then turned into the flu Tuesday night into Wednesday. I got him to the doctor on Wednesday, but there wasn't much they could do for him at that point since there was no bacterial infection, only a couple yucky viruses. Even though he was vomiting and had almost constant diarrhea, I kept making sure he was getting as much liquid as possible. Well on Saturday we discovered that it just wasn't enough and he needed more help. He hadn't vomited since Thursday, but as soon as he did again on Saturday we decided to take him to the ER. Luckily, we didn't have to wait very long and the Sacred Heart Children's ER was amazing! They did some blood work to find out how dehydrated he was and to find out if they would need to admit him or not. They needed to get an iv in; two different nurses tried two different times to get it into him in 4 different places, one was even an intensive care nurse and can usually always get one in with the first try. They have a policy there that the nurses can only do 2 pokes and after that they can't try anymore and have to let someone else try. Finally a 3rd nurse came in and they decided that they would have to put it into a vain in his scalp like they do with small infants. I think all of this was a little more traumatic for Jon and I because Eli was so out of it that he just wined a little but didn't even move or resist our holding him down. (normally he tries to get out of getting his diaper changed!) The iv went into his head with one try, thank goodness! They got him hooked up to the iv and when the blood work came back they decided that he was going to have to stay over night and be admitted. We were just so grateful and glad that we went there when we did and that Eli was going to be feeling better very soon. When they weighed him he weighed 1 pound less than he did on Wednesday. His eyes looked were sunken back a little and he looked like he had bruises on both of them. His skin was loose and his color was pale. It made us so sad and made me feel guilty that I hadn't gotten him help sooner, I really thought that I was getting him enough fluids.

Here he is with his iv~ :(

Here is his name band and the heart rate monitor hooked up to his toe. The kept it on there trough the night and just had the cord hang out of his jammies so they wouldn't have to wake him up during the night to take his vitals.

Here he is about 10:30 Saturday night finally feeling better and wanting to play! :)

When he woke up Sunday morning he was acting very tired and sick again so they decided to hold off on taking out the iv right away, and the new blood test from early that morning still came back that he was dehydrated, although getting better.
Later in the morning Jon brought Kambria to see him and they had fun playing under the crib on the storage platform when he got some more energy.

It was about 5:00pm when they finally were able to take out the iv......yay! He was looking so much better, and healthier!

And here he is playing with Daddy! Back to his old self! I had been waiting what seemed like forever for him to be back to normal again!
We were able to check out about 6:30pm and go home. He is feeling much better now, but he still runs out of energy fast and needs more rest. He still has a cold and is teething, but I will take that over the way he was all week last week. I love him so much and am grateful for modern medicine and for the wonderful staff at Sacred Heart, they were so good to him and to us!!!!