We've had a bit of an eventful week. Last Sunday, our little boy woke up early from his nap, screaming. This had happened a few times while he had gastro, but his sore tummy would subside and eventually we could distract him from his discomfort. This time, the screaming went on for an hour or so. This, coupled with the fact his gastro didn't seem to be going away, convinced us to take him to hospital.
He screamed the whole way there, didn't stop to look at the ambulance (a sure sign things weren't right), and screamed in the waiting room. Luckily they took us in right away - the paediatrics ward seemed to be quite empty, or was it they wanted to stop the screaming?! Anyhow, they had to give him painkillers and put him on a drip, and he was poked and prodded in his belly by the doctors on the ward followed by the paediatric sugeon on call. A decision was made to tranfer him to one of the city's children's hospital, so that he could have an ultrasound that evening and they could check that his bowels were OK.
We went for a ride in an ambulance (they had a little kiddy-car seat strapped to a stretcher to transport him!), then once at the children's hospital, they had little mobile DVD-players, so at least we could watch some things while we waited. The nurses and doctors were much better at handling kids. After a couple more doctors poking and prodding and an ultrasound, we were finally transferred to a ward at about 1am. The ultrasound didn't pick up anything unusual. What a long day!
That night was hard - they had a difficult time keeping him still while they tried to tap his vein, and at some stage he had a tube down his nose, which he kept trying to rip out (they decided later it wasn't necessary, and took it out, thank goodness). I slept on a fold out bed just next to him, so at least he wasn't alone.
He didn't really seem better the next day. More poking and prodding from the doctors on the ward and the paediatric surgeon doing his rounds. Finally at the end of the day, after a minor dummy spit from us* trying to find out from the doctor what was causing this prolonged gastro and how long he'd have to stay in there, there was a breakthrough of sorts. E-chan had been to the doctor the previous week, and they'd taken a sample, and we told the ward doctor this (we'd thought we'd told them already, but maybe we'd only remembered to tell the previous 6 doctors we'd seen...). He'd had other pathology samples taken in hospital, but it would take a day or two to get thes results back. She went away, and came back buzzing 30 minutes later - apparently the results were back and they'd identified a parasite (a unicellular thing). The parasite was treatable with antibiotics, and he was started on a course that evening.
The next day thank goodness, he was notably better. He told the Doctor to "Go away!" when he came by to check up on him (hmmm). He was drinking and eating well, taken off the drip, and we were discharged after lunch. He's recovered completely now. Never been so happy to see a normal, solid poo in my entire life!! Sorry for giving too much information there, but that's how it is. I'm hoping we never have to take him to hospital again!
His Nanna (my M-i-L) came over to look after him last week fortunately, so we were able to go back to work and catch up on things, and know he was being well looked after. She'll be here until tomorrow night.
* We had forgotten this is sometimes what you have to do to get answers in hospital
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