March 28, 2009

We had a bad week. Michael and I finally started getting over our cold. He went back to therapy last week and to school. He really loves school and all the children in the class call out his name Mikey when he walks in, it's the cutest thing!!! At therapy he was evaluated for PT and OT and they both concluded that he is at about 15 months developmentally. That doesn't surprise me, even though I thought he was more at 18 months. So we will have to keep working at that.
Saturday, March 21, we went to a birthday party of one of Michael's class mates. I had no idea that the birthday boy was sick until the end of the party. I thought he was cranky but didn't put two and two together until it was too late. Michael started vomiting Monday afternoon and it was not the usual reflux vomit, this was different. He would not stop for 2 hours and when I called the dr, I was told to go to the ER. His color was a little yellowish and the nurse told us that his color looked fine to her. A minute later the dr. walked in and called the nurse to put in an IV right away because you could see clearly that he was dehydrated!! They gave him some IV fluids and some medication and he perked up right in front of our eyes. So a few hours later we were on our way home.

Two hours after we came home, he started all over again and now he also had diarrhea. And this time he had a fever (he did not the night before) so I took him back to the ER in the morning. We saw a different dr and he told me right away that Michael was going to be admitted. The poor little boy!! He was non-stop vomiting and they tried to put an IV in him again. It took 3 nurses 7 times and Michael was in so much pain. They didn't have a tech available, so I had to hold him down during their failures. It was awful!!! The diarrhea was non-stop at this point as well. I am so glad we took him back to the ER. Tuesday afternoon Robert stayed with him and I was going to be with him all night. He was doing fine for Robert, but from the moment I came in that night he started vomiting again and would not stop!! In the middle of the night they took his temp and it was 100 degrees. About 30 minutes later I felt that he was burning up and told the nurse. She totally discarded me and said that they had just taken his temp. She didn't even feel his skin. 2 hours later the tech took his temp again and it was 104.7!!!!! He was so miserable and in the meantime he kept vomiting and filling up his diapers. The nurses kind of let me deal with it, so I kept changing him, changing the sheets, clean his hands, wash my hands, trying to keep everything as clean as possible. Finally in the middle of the night they could take a stool sample and found out he has the Rotavirus. This is a highly contagious virus and could lead to severe dehydration, such as the case with Michael. Symptoms like vomiting and diarrhea could last between two and eight days. Ugghhh!!! So the next few days we spent in the hospital. Robert would do day shifts and I would do night shifts and Jules, David and Jessie also helped out. They were a great help!!! Thursday night at 10pm he was discharged. He seemed to be doing better. But the moment he came home he started coughing all of a sudden and the vomiting started again. So Robert took him back to the ER (the 3rd time in 4 days!)
I could not go, because I was getting sick. Even though I had been cautious, had washed all our clothes, all our sheets, sprayed Lysol on everything, etc. I still caught the rotavirus as well. And believe me, it sucks!!! I don't know what I would have done without Robert. He has been taking care of Mikey and myself. Robert and Michael were sent home and were told that we could expect a few more days of vomiting and diarrhea. The difficult part in our case is that Michael gets an oral aversion every time he gets out of the hospital. You cannot get anything close to his mouth right now. We have a hard time feeding him and he lost TWO pounds!!! He is back under 20 pounds and it took us months to get over this milestone!!! I am so sad!! It breaks my heart!! He is skin and bones. You can actually count his ribs!! My poor baby!!!!
It's hard not to be able to take care of my baby because I don't want to give him the virus back again.

I heard from a friend that children can be vaccinated against the Rotavirus. I wish I had known about that earlier!!!