Not fun

Whew. How shall I begin? I'm writing this from a computer in Schneider Children's Hospital at LIJ. I've been here since 11:00 last night. Ada had been running a fever and vomiting for the past two days. On Wednesday, her fever was spiking at 104 degrees. She wasn't even keeping down fluids given to her 1 teaspoon per hour by medicine dropper! She was so lethargic. She just lay there. Not even the phone tempted her to play. Every once in a while she gave a weak kvetch but none of her happy mono-babble. So I brought her into the ER on the advice of my pediatrician. The experience was a lot better than I expected. I waited just about five minutes to be seen by a triage nurse. Then another 10 minutes to be admitted into the ER. They catheterized her to obtain a urine sample. They couldn't even get out a drop! She was crying like nuts with no tears. I was glad to hear her being so forceful, though. She fought like an animal when they tried to insert the needle to get blood and start the intravenous fluid. She was so furious! We managed it with two nurses and myself. After that, she started crying just at the sight of a person heading in her direction or anywhere in her vicinity. So sad. At 3AM, they took her to the pediatric wing of the hospital. They said her bicarbonate count was really low (13 instead of the normal 24) which signaled dehydration. So we were in for the night. Ugh. It's 10:45 Thursday morning and she's getting really antsy about being here. Who can blame her! I think we'll be let out as soon as she can keep down food. Hope that's sooner rather than later!