There's no place like home...

We are finally home from two nights in the hospital. Owen has been sick since Monday and just sort of progressively got worse and wasn't eating or drinking much. By Thursday afternoon he was just laying on the floor crying about how bad he hurt. At one point he was on the ground in a fetal position, chewing a chicken nugget (his request I promise and by this point i was willing to give him about anything that he wanted) when he said that he couldn't swallow it because his throat hurt. I called the doctor assuming it was strep throat and made and appointment for Thursday afternoon.

When I took him to the doctor he proceeded to puke twice in the waiting room...an awesome experience when I had my purse, the puke bucket and him to carry around. After a few minutes of uncomfortable glances from the office staff, they finally agreed to take him to a room, even though the doctor wasn't ready to see him yet...thanks girls, really appreciated that! The doctor came in a few minutes later and took one look at him and said that we had to go to the main hospital for IV fluids. By this point I became pretty emotional, feeling horrible about how sick he has gotten and that I should have been doing a better job of trying to force fluids at home. I tried my best to not be emotional around him and drove to the hospital. We were taken back within five minutes and the process was quite smooth from that point forward.

We did rule out early on that he did not have strep. The ER doc ordered an X-ray and Ultrasound since he was having so much stomach pain. They were looking for appendicitis. Boy would I have felt horrible if it was something like that...all week I had just assumed it was a bad bug and that he would come around in no time.

Here he is getting ready to be taken to x-ray. He was a bit scared.

He wasn't happy about his IV. It was horrible to watch. As a mom, I would have done anything to be in his place at that moment. I hated hearing him scream and it was a heart wrenching feeling knowing that I couldn't do anything for him.

All three of us waiting for some results. And finally they changed him into a little gown since they had started his IV at this point.

X-ray results showed fluid pockets in his intestinal tract. Very common with so much vomiting and diarrhea, but they wanted to still take their time and rule out an ileus, an obstruction of the bowel.

Ultrasound results looked good....nothing suspicious for appendicitis which I was thrilled about, however then the doc shot me down by saying that the ultrasound wasn't necessarily the only indicator or having appendicitis and that they would keep him overnight to monitor him and to give him continued fluids through the IV. Also he had an overwhelming amount of key tones in his urine so they needed to make sure to keep an eye on those too.


We finally got to his room about 1230am. The staff was super great. He was the only kid on the floor (thankfully there weren't many at all) with the HUGE contact precaution bag hanging on his door. Most of the nurses and doctors just wore gloves when visiting him. But in the middle of the night, the technicians who didn't know him were fully gowned when they came in the room.

Here's my baby getting some much needed rest.

Playing with some action figures that my sister brought up for him, and props to EE for bringing him the BIGGEST balloon ever! He LOVED it!

Still not eating much. He had maybe a bite of jello and then they gave him chicken broth both mornings for breakfast. I get it, I really do, I mean if you're an adult that actually might sound good. But when you are a four year old who is a picky eater as it is, really? Chicken broth!! Ummmm, yeah, I'd like to know how many of you could get your kids to eat soup in general, let alone broth. (He was served beef broth for dinner, nice change up eh?!!)

Finally permission to try to eat regular foods. He picked fruit loops and cocoa puffs. Kris was still sleeping this morning so I took him down to the aquarium to have his breakfast. He loved watching the fish swim.

That yellow fish is Owen's new friend. He named him Nemo....very original buddy!

They had a pretty sweet toy room for all the kids to go play in. Owen thought it was the greatest room ever. We went down there a couple times each day, and every time a new visitor showed up he had to take them down to the playroom too. And as soon as we would walk in he would say "You don't know where to start, do you?" There was a cabinet full of VHS tapes. And we took a Thomas one back to the room for Owen to watch. When Kris came back later in the day Owen said "hey daddy, we found that black thing in the toy room. It's what you and uncle steve and ee used to watch when they didn't have DVDs." Wow!!

However two times when we were playing he managed to set off his alarm. The alarm is annoying and loud and doesn't stop beeping until the security staff makes sure the child is okay and he is with the responsible people (we all had corresponding bands on). The first time it went off I didn't really think anything of it. The same day though it went off again and the same security guard comes huffing and puffing down the hall, and says angrily, "what is he doing, playing rough? Why does he keep setting it off." I apologized and said I didn't know why it was being triggered but that he wasn't playing rough at all, he was just sitting on the floor. I later learned that each time the alarm sounds that the WHOLE hospital goes in shut down mode. All of the elevators return to the third floor which is the Pediatric floor and none of the doors in the hospital work until security comes (running up flights of stairs) to assess the situation. Then I realized why he was a tad upset. They ended up replacing Owen's security tag and it didn't happen again, thankfully!

Finally we were released this morning to come home. He was still dry heaving a lot so they gave him zofran through his IV for that, and Tylenol for his stomach pain. He also has diarrhea and they couldn't do much for that so that was kind of hard. A lot of accidents for this poor kid.

They concluded it was gastroenteritis and colitis (inflammation of the colon), and possibly rota virus. But the weird thing is that he's been sick for 6 days now and Wyatt and myself nor Kris have gotten a touch of anything. So it's just odd that what he has is supposed to be super contagious but we are all fine....anyway.....

We were released and on our way out of the hospital when I saw a comforting picture in the main lobby....my mom! I said, "hey Owen, Nana's here." So Owen and Kris are looking all around and I wheeled Owen up to this picture of my mom. He said, "There's my nana, she's on the poster!" Yep bud she sure is!

Home sweet home. He did throw up and had more diarrhea since we have been home but at least we know he is hydrated. And his spirits, man oh man is he in good spirits. A little demanding which I think is partly due to the fact that we have all given in to his every want and need over the last three days. He was coming around though and by this evening he was being his polite respectful self again.

Right after a nice warm bath. And all of his bedding was washed so his bed was so comfy and inviting for him. Oh and of course I had to set up the whole neighborhood (his stuffed animals) so that they could all sleep together. It was a nice moment.

It is so good to be home! Thanks for your prayers for Owen over the past few days. Please continue to pray that he continues to improve and will stay hydrated so we don't have to go back to the hospital anytime soon. And thanks to all of you who visited Owen. He loves you all and was glad that you stopped to see him. Especially you grammy!

And thanks to my parents for keeping a good eye on Wy the past three days so that we could give our one on one to Owen....I think everyone will sleep well tonight!