My poor Anthony got stuck in the hospital for gastroenteritis/dehydration. My husband has IHC insurance, so unfortunately we got stuck at UVRMC. I would have much preferred being with my old friends over at Timp! We had some pretty awesome peds nurses there, and I think our experience would have been a lot better! My insurance won't cover anything out of network, or I would have still gone to my old hospital! Anthony was throwing up all day Monday, and couldn't even keep a sip of water down. That evening I took him to the after hours pediatrician. He gave me zofran for him, and said call if it didn't work. I did not think there was a chance it would work, but it did! He guzzled a whole bottle of pedialyte that night, and I thought all would be well. The next day he started with diarrhea. It was diapers full of pure liquid, and a ton of it! Still, he would have been fine, but that afternoon he slowed down on his drinking. The next day, he wouldn't drink anything at all. I encouraged water, popsicles, gatorade, pedialyte, yogert. He started throwing up again. I tried syringe feeding him liquids, but he'd spit it out, choke it out, and I knew I wasn't getting him adequate fluids. I called and talked with the nurse at my doctor's office, and she just said watch him till tomorrow, and see how he does. I hung up, knew she was wrong, so I called back. Dr Bailey wanted to see him, so I brought him in. I told him how bad his diarrhea was, and that he would have it as many as 4 or 5 times in an hour. That in addition to not getting Anthony to drink anything, he admitted him observation. They missed his IV in the first two pokes, but had the pediatric hospitalist there still. He was good at doing IVs under ultrasound, so he got it on his first try. If it wasn't for my poor boy being so miserable, it would have been really cool to watch! I'd never seen one placed under ultrasound before. After that, Anthony just fell asleep. He was so tired! Matt stopped in to see him for a few minutes with Josh and Thomas. I nursed Thomas, then sent the boys home with Matt. I told Matt to come over as soon as Thomas woke up so I could nurse him in the morning, also. Anthony was NPO to let his poor little tummy rest. It was slow at the hospital, so they sent my nurse home at midnight and got stuck with another one. She came in every 15-20 minutes to check Anthony's diaper! She kept saying he only had until 2:30 to have a wet diaper, or she'd have to call the dr to get Anthony a bolus. So from midnight until 2:30, I had to deal with a crying boy who was miserable every time she woke him up 3-4 times an hour! Still no wet diaper at 2:30, she had me change him just in case there was a drop or two. She said he must have had a little out, because it weighed 4ml's. I didn't bother to mention that it was probably the desitin on the diaper! Then, she started saying how she didn't really want to call and wake the dr up this late just for a bolus. She said she was thinking about getting a bladder scanner to see if there was any urine in his bladder! Seriously?! His blood sugar was 58, his CO2 was 15, he hadn't had a drink in 24 hours, unknown last wet diaper due to the watery diarrhea, and instead of calling for another bolus he could obviously use, she wanted to scan his bladder? But I was polite and just asked her to please call the dr, so she did. Took a while to get a hold of anyone. Dr Bailey slept through the call, Dr Cornish answered, but wouldn't order it because he said he wasn't on call, so finally she got hold of Dr Simmons, who said Dr Cornish really was on call because it was for a patient from the office, but at least he was nice enough to order the second bolus anyway! She started it, then saw the smallest little air bubble, and said they freak her out so she was going to remove it. The line was clamped above where she aspirated it, so it didn't get the air bubble out, and it cause blood to backflow quite a ways into the tube. So then she had to get a flush to flush the blood back, the pump was alarming, and Anthony was screaming because they were messing with the IV. She finally finished getting things settled around 4, and Anthony was up for the day! I had her bring in cartoons to watch. Then, it didn't matter as much that she was still coming in every half hour to check his diaper (at least it was no longer every 15-20 minutes)! Matt showed up around 7:30 with the boys, and Anthony was just having constant melt downs! When Dr Bailey came in to check on him, he ordered clear liquids. Anthony was so happy to eat a popsicle, but then refused to drink anything else the rest of the morning! I made Matt leave at noon, cause I knew Anthony wouldn't drink anything unless he got a good nap. He slept on my lap for 4 hours! He was still moody when he woke up, but he started finally drinking! When I was sure he would keep it up, I called the nurse and asked her to call Dr Bailey so we could go home before our observation hours were up! Did I mention that Matt never even saw the nurse? He was there from 7:30 (just after she did her morning assessment) until 12:30, and never saw her. On the plus side, no one interrupted Anthony's four hour nap! Maybe I'm picky cause I remember if my patients didn't need a whole lot, I would still make sure to peek my head in every hour or so just so they would know I was still there, and make sure they didn't need anything. So Anthony is home, happy, and healthy. He lost so much weight, he only weight 22 pounds at the hospital, but he's mostly gained it back! And, if any of the peds nurses I worked with read this, thank you for being the most awesome peds nurses ever! So glad I got the opportunity to work with you! I wouldn't hesitate to ever have you in charge of taking care of my kids! The thing that was the hardest about my decision to be a stay at home mom was leaving my coworkers, boss, and the sweet kids I got to work with. They are all truly amazing people, and I hope they all realize what a great service they do!
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