ER visit and sick baby

Claire had a typical day of having lots of dirty diapers on Monday since she has been sick.  But when I picked her up from my parent’s house and was on the way home, I looked back and she was gagging in her car seat.  She had her fingers down her mouth so I thought she was chewing her fingers to make her teeth feel better (I think she’s teething again).  But when I looked back again, projectile curdled milk vomit was going everywhere.  And a lot of it.  So I wheeled off into an old car dealership and got out to clean her off and called my parents since I was close to their house.  It was a mess.  MESS.  Claire was upset from throwing up, I had not clean clothes to put on her, vomit was puddled in her car seat and splattered all over my car and her things.  A friend saw us sitting there and came back to check on us which was extremely nice! 

We all got home, got Claire and the car cleaned out/up, and thought and hoped it was an isolated event.  But she just seemed out of it and fussy.  So I figured after having diarrhea for a week and throwing up she was probably getting dehydrated and fast.  So I made the call to the triage nurse and he got the pediatrician on call to contact us.  After discussion we decided we would take Claire to the ER for fluids and to be checked out.  Not what we wanted to do to her, but we knew it was necessary.  It’s not good for any infant to be dehydrated, especially not a heart baby. 

So as we were scrambling to get her things together, she threw up the same curdled/soured milk again all over the kitchen.  By the time we got backed out of the driveway she was asleep in the car.  We headed to the ER and prayed it would not be a long wait.  We got Claire checked in and assessed very quickly and they took us directly back to a bed.  Then they did the registration right at her bedside which was nice.  I had seen our neighbor there (he is a ER doctor) and hoped he would be Claire’s doctor, but he wasn’t unfortunately.  I wasn’t too impressed with the doctor, but the nurses and staff in the ER were great!  We were there about 3.5 hours and they did an abdominal x-ray, blood work, urine sample, and IV fluids.  Nothing came back abnormal on the x-ray or labs, so we were given the option to be admitted or go home.  So we chose to go home and monitor Claire there where she could actually rest. 

We followed up with the pediatrician yesterday morning.  She said that her liver panel levels were up so she was going to investigate that and then maybe do another panel soon when Claire feels better to see if it’s just from the sickness or if something is going on with her liver.  Everyone still has no idea really what is going on.  Claire has been off milk since the Monday night vomiting and she is still having diarrhea.  So we don’t think it’s the milk.  They took her off all meds.  The c. diff labs came back negative.  So the pediatrician is thinking Claire possibly has rotavirus which is a really bad stomach virus. 

Anita said last weekend when she went to the pharmacy to get Claire the probiotics and stuff that the pharmacist asked if Claire could have rotavirus and if she was up to date on her immunizations.  Anita said she was up to date, so they thought it might not be rotavirus.  Well, come to find out yesterday, Claire never had the rotavirus vaccine!  I didn’t remember this.  But I think they give it around 2 months of age.  Claire was still at Duke in the ICN and they do not give live vaccines in the ICN.  So Claire did NOT have the rotavirus vaccine.  So this could be the culprit. 

I took a sterile sample cup home from the pediatricians office and collected Claire’s stool sample to test for rotavirus and parasites yesterday.  I am not sure how long it takes to get the results back, but maybe we will have an answer soon. 

I gave her some Zofran yesterday because she kept burping and gagging like maybe she was nauseated. She acted like she felt a whole lot better after that and actually ate 2 crackers yesterday evening.  She slept better last night and was only up once with no dirty diapers all night.  But she made up for that this morning when I dropped her off with my mom.  

But my mom texted me a picture of Claire attempting to eat some banana and cheese for breakfast this morning (after Zofran), so we will see how that sits on her stomach. 

Thank you for all of the prayers, phone calls, messages, etc.  for Claire.  Social media can be a bad thing at times, but when you are in need of prayers quickly, Facebook seems to be a good avenue.  So thanks to everyone for the continued prayers for Claire!!  We still do not have an answer and she is still sick. 

I will try to update as much as possible.  Sorry for the delayed update.  We have just been so busy keeping Claire clean and feeling ok and trying to catch up on sleep! 

Love,

The Scott Family

Claire in the ER