ER Visit: The Solution, Part 3
Read part 2 here.
After at least five minutes of continuous vomiting Nora stopped. I knew I could never push a vomiting, feverish child in a jogger for for 1 mile much less 13.5 miles. So I changed my clothes, nursed Nora and rocked her in the rocking chair. I attempted to give Nora medicine to help her fever drop and she started throwing up again. She was just vomiting uncontrollably and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I could tell she was scared by the way she cried and clung to me as she vomited.
I figured it was a bug and I was just going to have to weather the vomit storm. When her fever went up to 102.8 and she started having trouble breathing I got more worried. I called the nurse advice line and gave them her symptoms. The nurse had an appointment at 4:30pm for me and she wanted me to give Nora some Tylenol while she booked the appointment. The second Nora had all of the medicine down she started puking again -all over me of course.
I had put the nurse on speaker phone so she heard the whole thing. She decided that since Nora wasn’t able to keep anything down I had to go to the ER. I left covered in puke. I was scared and I figured Nora was probably going to throw up on me again anyway.
At the ER Nora was listless, staring into space and crying non-stop. We went through triage relatively quickly and then had a two hour wait to see the doctor. Nora had to have a catheter to rule out a UTI as well as an x-ray of her chest. She cried HYSTERICALLY for all of these procedures and I wanted to cry right along with her.
Finally the doctor came back to give us the verdict. Nora did not have a UTI but she was very dehydrated AND the x-ray revealed that Nora had pneumonia.
So now Nora’s on antibiotics and anti nausea medicine and is doing much better. I am so thankful for modern medicine. I can’t imagine how scared parents were before all of these high tech tests and solutions came along.
What’s your scariest ER story?
Oh no, poor little sweetheart! So sorry to hear this, Kelly, I’m sure you were going crazy! A good thing that came out of this is now you know you can handle just about anything on your own when it comes down to it, right? You are a supermom (: So glad Nora is feeling better — how do little ones get pneumonia, anyway? I don’t know much about it…but now I am nervous about all the coughing little kids at daycare, haha!
Sarah,
You’re so right; I do feel more empowered about dealing with things on my own.
I didn’t know too much about pneumonia either, and I certainly didn’t know how quickly it could sneak up! But the good thing is that modern technology is awesome! and if we Moms trust our gut everything should work out
.
Kelly
none of my kids have ever had pneumonia! thats crazy. sooo sorry. i’ve always hated seeing my babies throwup because it IS scary for them
Kelly, did the doctors tell you what the symptoms of baby pneumonia are? I bet other moms would like to know what to look for!
There’s also a great article in O’Healthy that talks more about pneumonia in children: http://ohealthy.onslow.org/Search/90,P02958
I am glad that Nora is doing better!
No, Theckla, the Doctor didn’t tell me what the symptoms of pneumonia were. I wish I had thought to ask! The Doctor just said the x-ray showed a clouded area in her lungs which meant she had pneumonia.
What a great resource you’ve linked to. Thanks for sharing!
Kelly