Man, I Hate Vomit!

It's 2 am on Thursday morning.

"Mommy. MOMMY!" I hear Mikaily say. "Mommy, my tummy hurts."

That was the beginning....

I spent the next 9 hours sitting by my daughter. I rubbed her back and held her hair out of the way as she proceeded to throw up over and over and over again. She kept saying that her tummy hurt. It got worse and worse until it was so bad she was curled up in a ball screaming in pain.

For those who don't know, Mikaily was a preemie. She was 8 weeks early and has had numerous medical problems. When she was born, she had something called a brain bleed. The bleed (which happens when those tiny blood vessels burst) caused some scarring that closed off the tiny tube in her head that would normally drain fluid out of her brain. Her brain began to swell. They had to put in a small tube, called a shunt, that goes from her brain, down the back of her head, around the side of her neck, down the center of her breastbone and into her stomach, where it drains all that extra fluid. (Isn't modern medicine AMAZING?!?) She had this shunt placed when she was 3 weeks old. She weighed barely 3 pounds at the time and was only 16 inches long.

So, when Mikaily was in so much pain and was throwing up so much, I decided I needed to call the doctor. We took her in. They told us we needed to immediately take her to the Children's hospital here. They told us it was one of three things....
1. A nasty virus
2. Appendicitis
3. Her shunt


We were so scared. I took her over to the ER. I looked at my beautiful baby girl as we were waiting in the ER. She looked so weak. Her skin was pale. Her lips barely had any color and were so dry they looked like they were cracking already. She was not in good shape. They decided they needed to start an IV right away. They stuck her once.....her vain blew immediately. They tried a second time in the other arm....same thing. They called someone else.....someone with more experience. She tried and was, for a third time, unsuccessful. They decided we would have to try and give her fluids by mouth, very slowly. I spent 5 hours that night, waking her up every 10 minutes, trying to get a teaspoon at a time into her. They had given her some medicine to stop the vomiting. Thank God it worked.

They ran a bunch of tests. They did X-rays and CT Scans and ultrasounds and bloodwork. After all that, they decided they couldn't really tell us exactly what was causing the pain, but they decided it wasn't her shunt or appendicitis. They did tell us that they think she might be outgrowing her shunt, which means brainsurgery to replace it is most likely in her near future. They said it sounded like food poisoning, but she hadn't eaten anything that the rest of the family hadn't. Their best guess was that it was a nasty virus that hit her harder because she has a weakened immune system. I didn't care, as long as they could make her better.

We spent two days in the hospital. She is doing better now. She is still not eating well and is still not really back to being properly hydrated yet. I am thinking we still have a long couple days ahead of us. I am tired, I am hungry, my house looks like a tornado hit it and I don't care. I am going to go snuggle my baby girl and be thankful that she is home.

And like a true mommy blogger, I had my camera with me.....

Just FYI....My husband came to keep me company on Saturday after I had stayed up all night long with Kaily in the super uncomfy hospital chair waking her up every ten minutes to help her feel better while he was at home sleeping in our BED..... Isn't he a sweetheart?

After two days of eating absolutely nothing they gave her this big menu to choose from and out of everything she chose....a corndog??!

Here she is leaving the hospital looking MUCH perkier...