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March 11, 2005
Riley and the Rotavirus
When Riley awoke Monday morning, he seemed a little sluggish. Melissa said that she was going to stay home with him, but I blew it off as just being an over-worrying Mom. So she went to work. Oops.
While I was buckling him into his car seat, he threw up. Hadn't ever seen him do that before, so it obviously scared me. I brought him back inside and put him in his crib long enough to throw the cover to his car seat in the washing machine. Since we didn't have a car seat, we were a little stranded until Melissa could get home from work.
I called the doctor's office and the nurse said that it sounded like a stomach virus, which Melissa and I know well from December and early January, when we both got it (and Riley somehow did not). She told us to keep feeding him so he didn't get dehydrated.
Over the next couple of days, he started to get seriously dehydrated. His eyes were black and blue and his skin turned pale yellow. He lost considerable weight and didn't start doing better even after we stopped giving him formula (at his physician's request) and fed him solids. He kept the solids down, but still looked terrible.
Finally, on Wednesday night, his doctor told us to take him to the ER. We did and they took us in immediately, saying that he was very dehydrated. It took them six sticks to finally find a vein large enough to IV, and they started him on fluids.
It's Friday afternoon now and he's doing a lot better. He's still at the hospital (as are Melissa and I, obviously), and he's started eating again. He's been on IV fluids for the past several days. Turns out that it's rotavirus, which spread through pretty much his entire daycare classroom (and the adjoining rooms). He's getting better, but he was a pretty sick little dude.
Hopefully we can go home tonight or, at worst, tomorrow. Never would have thought a little stomach bug could put you in the hospital for three nights, but here we are. He's at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta and the staff has been phenomenal. Really great folks. Thanks to everyone who has called and emailed -- the kiddo's going to be fine.
Posted by Lee Clontz at March 11, 2005 4:00 PM