continued

I returned to the hospital, Shad went home, and the night began. Dr. Mower came by (even though he was off) and took a look at him and thought that he would be doing better by morning with more fluids. There was about 20 minutes between diaper changes and one long span of about an hour and 10 minutes where we actually got some sleep. The nurses had to come in and take blood a few times, but had a hard time getting him to bleed since he was so dehydrated. The night was long, and Sam was oh so sick. Morning came, Shad and Kelton arrived, a hospital pediatrician came by to check him out-then Dr. Mower did too. They both looked at him for a few minutes and said that he is going to have to stay there until they know what is wrong, he just looked so ill. The tests results were showing his electrolytes being all out of whack, so out of whack that they thought they were wrong, and continued to poke 3 more times to repeat the tests. I returned home to get a little rest, about forty five minutes later Shad called...."Sam has 2 iv's now, a catheter, his sodium and potassium are really high, and they are taking him to primary's in about 10 minutes. WHAT??? I leave for an hour and this is what happens? I knew I shouldn't have left. I then couldn't find my keys (they were still in the door), called my mother in law (actually called our home phone twice first), and headed out the door. When I arrived at the hospital, they were getting Sam ready for the ride. He had a catheter, an iv in both hands, and was terribly afraid, he just wanted to be held. I am not a crier, and when I saw them strapping him down and putting him in the ambulance, I couldn't pull myself together. The hospital weighed him and he had already lost 2 pounds since 3o'clock the day before! I asked if I could ride with them in the ambulance and they said yes, but only in the front. I opted to ride behind with Shad. The ride was long.

We arrived at Primary Children's late Saturday morning. Actually it was probably around noon. We had several residents and nurses checking him in, attaching equipment. This took quite a while. They started fluids right away and started asking questions. Many questions. We asked questions too. Learned that if his sodium levels dropped too quickly it could cause brain swelling, if his potassium did, it could cause a heart arrhythmia. We were allowed to let him drink the fluids he wanted, along with jello and popsicles. Late evening came, and the stool didn't stop. We timed how long it would take for him to go from eating to pooping and it was about 10 minutes. He ate jello, and it came out literally looking like we just scooped the jello into his diaper. He was in pain with cramps, he was so thirsty, he was exhausted. We couldn't do anything to make him feel better. We asked for something to help with the pain, or to sedate him, but they couldn't. They wanted to make sure that he was alert. They moved us across the hall that evening and Saturday night began. Again we were constantly changing diapers. ALL NIGHT. They had 2 iv's going constantly and were checking his sodium and potassium every 2 hours through a finger prick, and every 4 hours for his gas levels with a little more than a prick. Long, long night.

to be continued..... sorry, can't type all at once, i want to make sure i get the details right, and i get too burned out after about that much at a time.