Thursday Thirteen: Pictures No Mother Should Ever Have to Have

This week has been an extremely difficult and heart-breaking week for our entire family. On Sunday night we had to to take Ella to the Emergency Room per the request of the on-call nurse. That is one place I have never had to visit and never want to visit again. We spent several hours at the ER just to be sent home with a still-very-sick baby girl. On Monday morning I called Ella's pediatrician at the request of my wonderful clearly-thinking mother. I explained everything that had taken place the night before at the Emergency Room, and the nurse was very quick to tell me that they did need to see Ella right away. I was very thankful to hear that Ella's doctor was the one who would be seeing her. After waiting in the waiting room for one hour with a sick and not-so-happy little girl, we were called back. When the nurse weighed Ella my heart sank. Her weight was down to fifteen pounds. Dr. Glenn came in and examined Ella. He was very thorough to which I was very grateful. He began recording notes on Ella's chart without saying very much to me, so I knew what that meant - - - HOSPITAL! Dr. Glenn began telling me that he doesn't think Ella's condition is life-threatening, but it is definitely one that will require hospitalization. He left the room to write his orders for Ella. Then we began a journey I never wish to travel on again. Brian met Ella and I at the hospital just as they were admitting her. We made our way to the sixth floor of the hospital and entered what would be our "closet" of a home for the next several days. The nurse came in to ask a lot of questions while the nurse tech suited Ella up in her way-too-big hospital gown. They then carried Ella away to a room where they would do all of the painful procedures like getting a urine sample via a catheter, inserting the piece in her hand for the IV, and getting a blood sample. I had to leave the room at about the point when they began strapping Ella down. Brian was very strong and remained with her the entire time. He's SUPER DADDY! :) Ella made her way back to the room, and they soon began her fluids. She was pretty lethargic all day, so she slept in our arms quite a bit. We finally saw a doctor around 9:oo that night. Dr. Beavers let me know that her blood work was great, except for her hydration levels. They were so low that he said she could have never recovered from this on her own. I explained to him about our trip to the ER and how the doctor there gave Ella a suppository to stop the vomiting. He was very alarmed at this news just as Dr. Glenn. He made it clear to me that she should have NEVER received any sort of suppository. He explained the dangers associated with that procedure and medicine for babies, but told me not to worry about that at this point because she didn't have any of the adverse reactions. He said that we needed to focus on her health and issues at this point and getting her better. He changed the formula in her IV hoping that if we increased the number of CCs that she received per hour we may be able to return home the next day. Ella slept well during the night despite the fact that we DID NOT.

On Tuesday morning, we received another visit from the pediatrician. Dr. Contreras was pleased with the progress Ella had made, but was very hesitant on discharging her that day due to the severity of her condition on Monday when she entered. She did say that we could begin transitioning Ella back to formula a little mid-day. She said she would return in the evening to make the final call. Ella did well on formula. Dr. Contreras returned, but decided that it would be best to have Ella stay one more night. We respected that decision and prepared ourselves for another sleepless night.

Ella slept well during the night, and was discharged the very next morning.

We are truly thankful for all of the love, support, prayers, food, visits, telephone calls, etc. that we received during this journey. There is absolutely NO way we could have maintained our sanity as parents without it!!!!

Ella is still a very weak little girl who doesn't want to eat very much. We are keeping her home the rest of the week hoping that she will recover with no set backs.