First Hospitalization...

Sorry this is an after the fact kind of update... but we here at the casa de canine have been busy and ill. It all started the week before Thanksgiving when I became ill. We'll just say a GI bug hit me and then proceeded to hit the household.

Friday night after turkey day Squeaker came down with it. I thought we could muscle our way through it. Of course he had it worse than either D or myself. Our bugs lasted 2 days and were done... by Monday December 1st, Squeaker was starting to resemble a limp noodle and I cried uncle and took him to the pediatrician.

As a PICU nurse I've seen kids dehydrated... and knew my son was dehyrdated. Making the situation apparent to D was well... I somehow didn't convey the gravity of the situation or he would have gone with me to the pediatrician. When we weighed our Squeaker he was down a pound from his last visit... and well my son really doesn't have a pound to lose. Taking a closer look at him he was to put it mildly - moderately dehydrated and the pediatrician was hopeful we could just tank him up and go home.

Since D hadn't gone with me to the doctor I had to call him. Because by golly if I'm going to have to see my baby poked with an IV so is he. D took 6 phone calls to wake up (he'd worked the night before). By the time he answered I had gone from nice wife to incredibly pissed off wife - I'm sure all of you have been there before right? We decided I would drive home, pick up D and head to the ER.

By the time we got to the ER poor Squeaker was looking even more punky. I had then started to kick myself for not bringing him on Sunday. My baby was pitiful and didn't throw much of a fight up for the IV start or other things that had to be done. I had at that point realized we were probably not going to be going home and D still was clueless about that particular aspect until the ER doc came in and said that Squeakers labs were awful and we were going to be staying.

All in all we were in the ER maybe 2 hours total before we were taken to a room. Squeaker was still pretty fragile when we got to the room, but was doing a bit better. It's amazing what a little bit of fluid will do for a baby but he definitely needed the fluids.

D went home and I was left to be with Squeaker. The nurses were wonderful. I couldn't have asked for a nicer bunch. The hospital itself was wonderful too. We were able to be released Tuesday afternoon and came home. Squeaker was still battling the GI bug but was a bit better.

This bug lasted 12 days... let me just say it was awful. We're only just now getting back to normal in the last 2 days. I hated seeing my son feel so punky and ill and it made me thankful for knowing what was what because I can't even imagine how I would have felt without that knowledge.

So now we're done disinfecting the house. We're able to go out in public again... and hope to see Santa in the next few days.