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.

Sam-what happened?

First I need to say thanks to everyone for all your prayers and your support. This has been the worst week of my life. It has also been a week to remember. To remember how lucky we are to have friends and family. This is going to be a boring post, but this is my journal too. Here it goes.

Thursday March 19th, Sam wakes up around 6:30 with vomit in his bed that looks like grapes. I get him up, feed him some oatmeal, 20 minutes later, the oatmeal is all over him, the couch, and me. The rest of the day is a blur of cleaning up puke. It didn't matter what I gave him, it came right back up. Thinking it was a "flu bug" I continued to give him fluids.

Friday March 20th Really lethargic. He doesn't move an inch off the air-mattress (I set it up the night before to sleep with him). He has no interest in food or drink. He sleeps most of the day. I called the Dr. around 1:45 to see if I should bring him in, he hasn't eaten or kept anything down in over 24 hours and hasn't had a wet diaper since Thurs. night. They say bring him in at 2. I see the PA since my doc has Friday's off. The PA says he should get an iv of fluid, but didn't know if he should be admitted. He retrieves a pediatrician in the office and he comes to check him out. He also thinks Sam should get some fluids, then be re-evaluated. I carry Sam from the Dr. office to the Hospital. Get checked in, an IV inserted and wait for 2 hours while he gets fluids. "He will really perk up after the fluids, he is just really dehydrated" says the Dr. and the nurses. The IV is finished around 5 and he is still just laying there. The nurses and I both think something is odd, but don't know what is wrong. She calls the Dr. (not working today remember) and he sounds kind of annoyed that he was called on his day off. I talk to him saying Sam is still really lethargic, has a fever (102 since Thurs. night). He gives me the option of going home and being re-checked in the morning, or staying at the hospital. I don't know what to say, I'm not a physician. He calls the ped. that saw him earlier and calls back saying we should stay the night, get more fluids, then will be fine in the morning. It is "probably just a tummy virus and he needs more fluids". We get admitted, start another drip, Sam pukes all over the bed, Shad arrives after we clean the bed. I go home to get clothes and a bite to eat. I call Shad to check on Sam, and he says there has been another "accident", not vomit this time, but stool. He lifted Sam's legs to change his diaper and he squirted all over Shad. We were all laughing so hard at how explosive it was, and how Shad got drenched in Sam stool. Little did we know, this was the beginning...

to be continued.

Sam

A little update for those of you who don't know. This will be short and sweet cause this keyboard totally sucks. Sam had what appeared to be a flu on thurs. and fri. He seemed lethargic, so I took him to the doctor. They sent us to AF hospital to get some fluids and we ended up staying over. His electolyte levels were all out of wack by Sat. and so they took him by ambulance to Primary Childrens where we remain. He made the record here of "stool" at 500 per kilo, which is basically 5 liters of shit. They took him off of all food (he was only allowed clears anyway). His bowels needed a rest (his poo was coming out jello if he ate jello, it was literally taking 10 minutes for whatever went in his mouth to come out the other end. They got his levels stable last night(sunday)and did an xray and cat scan and both looked good. They weren't sure was was causing all of this, and he has bacteria in his blood. Yesterday afternoon they decided it was most likely bacilles cerrus. I totally just spelled that wrong, but it's close enough. He will get to have liquids in the morning sometime and they will put a pick line in to keep an eye on his blood levels and give him antibiotics. If all goes well we will be able to come home on wed. night. He just gave us a scare around midnight when his temp. dropped and his heart rate dropped really low. We couldn't wake him up. They did a blood gas test, which just came back normal and we are heating him up with lots of blankets and heating pads. He is doing fine, but the last 4 hours have been really scary. He isn't active at all, but alert and knows when the nurses come in he will be getting touched. That's all I can type right now, got to get back in the room. We have great nurses, and awesome doctors here, I will elaborate more later.

Chillin at mom's

I went to mom's house with good intentions to help do a little spring cleaning, but ended up doing this...











and I feel so much better. Thanks mom. We won't post the "hair cut" that Sam got.. everyone will see it soon enough. It will grow, it will grow, it will grow.

4 wheeler

ahhhh






I also got some seriously funny video of him as well, just trying to figure out how to shorten it and be able to upload it. I can totally do the long version, but so far it has taken almost 20 minutes to upload.

Draper Temple

Mom and Dad took us to the Draper Temple open house yesterday. It was beautiful. It was awesome. It was peaceful.