what...an awful week

It all started a week ago from this past Thursday. Bella started throwing up. By Friday night it hit me and then, one by one, the boys dropped like flies. We all had the stomach flu. It wasn't exactly the way I had envisioned on spending our weekend. We even had to miss soccer games on Saturday, the tv was on 24/7. We were lazy and slept, a lot. The boys and I recovered and were almost back to normal by Monday morning. Bella, however, was not better. She kept throwing up occasionally. I let it go a few days thinking it was just taking her little body a little longer to kick the bug. Then a couple friends made me feel bad that I hadn't taken her in to see the Dr yet. Arrangements were made for someone to hang out with the boys and we were off to the ER.

At 5:40 we were standing in line to check in, by 6:05 we were admitted, triaged and vitals had been taken. Around 6:15 we were taken back into the ER. A nurse came and spoke with us, then it was sit and wait for the Dr to come by to speak with us. We were seen by the Dr by 7:10, she wanted to run some tests thinking Bella probably had a UTI. So by 7:30 poor baby girl had a catheter inserted to get a urine sample and immediately after that torturous moment we were whisked away to have X-rays of her belly taken. At 8:00 the nurse came back and asked if the Dr had told us what was going on, she hadn't, so the nurse explained that the Dr looked at the X-rays and thought she might have a bowel obstruction. They wanted to draw some blood to run some more tests. They inserted the IV, took their blood and hooked up little girl to some fluids. It was then that they told me they were talking to the Dr's down at Balboa about transferring her down there. Of course at this point I'm going slightly crazy. By 10:15 we had Bella buckled into her car seat which was strapped onto the gurney for the ambulance ride down to Balboa Navy Medical Center in San Diego. By 11:30 we were unloaded and settling into her hospital room.




We tried to sleep. It was a pain with all the people coming in and out of the room to check on her and talk to me. Thankfully the pediatric surgeons weren't concerned that she had a bowel obstruction. They said since she had the stomach flu and then got the UTI her system probably just slowed down, and that it was rare in a kid her age to have a bowl obstruction. So then the focus was on watching her, getting her fluids and making sure she doesn't continue to throw up. We slept off & on through the middle of the night, sometimes she let me lay in the bed with her other times I was sitting in the uncomfortable chair next to her bed. 








  They gave the ok for a normal diet again so she was thoroughly excited to be able to get her cup with some milk. They brought her breakfast and she nibbled on some toast. Around 11am one of the daytime nurses brought me good news...they were going to discharge her! So I began to make plans for someone to pick us up and because of the time they were supposed to discharge us, I also had to get someone to the house to hang out with the boys. They brought her lunch while we waited. Our discharge time came and went, our ride showed up and we continued to wait. I know nothing is set in stone, but I guess we were waiting for the head pediatric surgeon to come see her. Her meds had already been brought up from the pharmacy and the discharge papers were ready. Finally at 3:30 the head Dr showed up. She spoke with her group of Dr's outside her room for a minute or two and then looked at Bella and talked to me for about 2 minutes total. After that they got things moving. They removed her IV, brought me her antibiotics, and gave me the discharge papers to sign. Finally...we were free! I know that it was a short stay in the hospital, but I hadn't eaten anything in 24 hours because when we left for the ER I hadn't even made dinner yet. I didn't bring anything with me except her, my wallet and a book.


It was nice to finally get home, she seemed to be much happier at home also. We settled in for the night because we had to get back to normal routine really quick. No rest in this house, the following day was Saturday and Tommy and Alex had games in the morning.