Thursday, November 2, 2006

A Visit to the ER, 1st Halloween and 6 Months Old

Since I last posted, we've had lots of excitement around our house! My mom came in to town for the weekend before my birthday. She enjoyed spending time with Caleb while I went to a wedding shower and Rudy and I went to my 30th birthday party on Saturday. My party was a lot of fun! There were 13 of us there and we laughed and carried on as if we were at a 21st birthday party, instead of a 30th.

Last Thursday (10/26), when I picked Caleb up from Carrie's, she told me that he had been having some nasty diapers and she was on the verge of calling me to pick him up but didn't because it was the end of the day. We decided that it was probably from all of the sinus drainage he's been having and didn't really worry about it too much. His stomach was fine that night so we sent him back to Carrie's the next day. He was still congested, but seemed okay other than that.

That Friday (10/27), Jenny and I left for Las Vegas. We went to celebrate our birthdays with a Jimmy Buffett concert and a whole lot of fun! Halloween weekend in Vegas is like nothing I've ever seen! The concert was awesome and we had a great time. Our travel was horrible, but Saturday made it all worth it. PLUS - our Cardinals won the World Series while we were there. That was so awesome!

Back to Caleb... I called Rudy when I got to Vegas to check in and he said that Caleb was sicker than he had been the day before. We decided that he should take Caleb to the urgent care to get him checked out and maybe get some sort of medicine to help him. When they got to urgent care, Caleb threw up all over Rudy. I have to give it to Rudy, though - he handled it well. He took care of that baby above all else, even though he had a huge marching contest the next day. As planned, Jerry and Rebecca came to get Caleb, because they were scheduled to keep him Saturday night. Rudy passed along the doctor's instructions for them to follow. I felt so completely helpless. I was miles and miles away and couldn't do anything for my sick baby or my exhausted husband. I had full belief that they would be okay without me, but told Rudy and Jerry to call me if anything changed or if they needed me to hop the next plane home. Caleb continued to have diarrhea for the rest of the weekend. When I finally got home at 2:00 Monday morning, I walked in the door and heard Caleb screaming. I got to the top of the stairs and found Rudy changing yet another nasty diaper. I told Rudy to go to bed and I took over right then and there. It was a long night. I stayed home with him on Monday and he seemed to be feeling so much better, so he went back to daycare on Tuesday. He wasn't just right on Tuesday, but it wasn't awful, so we continued to think it was either congestion or maybe even the green beans that he was eating that was causing the diarrhea. Carrie agreed that it likely wasn't contagious, so she agreed that we should keep bringing him the rest of the week. She did say that she was a little concerned because he hadn't eaten much that day and he hadn't had any wet diapers. That worried me too, but he wasn't showing any other signs of dehydration, so we just decided to keep an eye on him. Tuesday afternoon, we put Caleb in his lion Halloween costume and went to the Sheltons for a quick visit. On the way there, we heard the unmistakable sound of a baby diaper blow-out. By the time we got to the Sheltons, the pants of Caleb's Halloween costume were soaking wet and we had to just take them off of him. The poor thing was a legless lion for the rest of the evening! The crazy thing is that he never acted like he felt bad. He was laughing and smiling through the whole thing! When we got home, Caleb refused a bottle and refused Pedialyte. He still hadn't had a wet diaper, so I got worried. I called Monica for advice and she suggested that I call the pediatrician's exchange. I did and the nurse that I talked to said that we needed to take him to the ER to get his fluids checked. After one more nasty diaper, we packed up his diaper bag and headed out the door at 9:00.

When we got to the ER, Rudy and I got upset because all of the nurses kept talking about how fat/chubby/roly-poly, etc Caleb is. They were saying how it was going to be hard to draw his blood and how they sure hoped they didn't have to start an IV on him, because it was going to be so hard to do. We were sitting there with a sick baby and all they could do was talk about how fat they thought he was. We know he's a big boy, but it was completely unnecessary for them to do that. (By the way, he weighed 20 lbs, 12 oz. when we were there.) We talked to the doctors and nurses and then they tried to take his blood. They really did have a hard time finding a vein and Caleb screamed like I've never seen him scream before. It completely broke my heart. I had to walk away a couple of times. It was just too hard to see him in that kind of pain and not be able to do anything at all about it. Once they finished, Caleb fell sound asleep in my arms. He was exhausted. The doctor came back pretty quickly and said that Caleb was not dehydrated. Thank Heavens!!!!! He said that we just needed to keep a very close eye on him and that it was likely that the diarrhea was being caused by a stomach flu which would be very contagious. At that point, I decided I would stay home with him on Wednesday for certain. On the way home, I called my mom and she offered to come stay with him so that I wouldn't have to miss work, but that wasn't necessary.

Caleb and I stayed home on Wednesday and we both slept most of the day. He didn't have anymore diarrhea and he started to gradually eat again. Last night, he had made it 24 hours without diarrhea, so we called Carrie to tell her that he would be back at her house today. He had a great day today and a great night tonight. Hopefully, this means he's on the mend! I did elevate the head of his bed last night and we put a vaporizer in his room to help with his congestion. Hopefully, he'll be able the shake that nastiness soon.

On a much happier note, Caleb is into full-force babbling these days. It started on Sunday. His favorite thing to do is, "dadadadadada!" He likes to play with his volume when he does it too, so he'll go from whispering to yelling and back again. It is hilarious! He also loves it when Rudy bounces him up and down in front of the couch or bed when Dewey is up there. He laughs hysterically at that. I made him laugh tonight by hiding behind Rudy's back and scaring him by playing peek-a-boo. It's been a few days since we've heard that glorious laughter, so it was a wonderful night!

Caleb is six months old today and he continues to melt us and make us laugh every single day. He is the greatest Earthly joy of our lives.

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