Sweety's First Hospital Stay

This post is mostly for documenting reasons, so don't feel obligated to wade through it.


We've had quite a bit of illness at our house in the last month or so, a bad cold and cough followed by the stomach flu. Smarty and I did okay, and Ben managed to miss both rounds, but Sweety's had quite a battle.

He was through the worst of it last weekend, but on Monday I took him to the doctor, because he was still lethargic and not eating or drinking much. His blood sugar was way down, he was dehydrated, and he'd lost a pound and a half. You can imagine what a difference a pound and a half makes on a 14 or 15 pound body!

The unbelievably great part is that somewhere in the midst of his struggle, Sweety grew an inch! Doubling his growth since October! Dr. Clawson said to me, "How is that possible?!"

All I could say was, "I don't know; you're the doctor!"I am THRILLED! I'm so grateful that his ability to grow hasn't completely shut off all together. I was beginning to wonder. I think this is very good news for the future.

But back to the story: So Dr. Clawson sent us to the hospital to 'pump him back up,' and I braced myself for the inevitable IV stick. (Several of you have mentioned to me about your children getting IVs and blood work done. I know I'm not alone in the misery of this experience!)

We've been with Sweety to the hospital for blood work and to the ER for dehydration before, and after several people poked and fished and fished and fished, they eventually had to give up both times. They got the blood work that time by pricking fingers and squeezing it out, and in the ER we re-hydrated Sweety with a syringe and some Pedia-lyte.

True to form, Sweety was a challenge. One by one Sweety took down the best of the best, wounding egos and ruining 3 unblemished records. After 5 people and a dozen or so tries, the Peds. dept. manager, who happened to be my former bishop, came in and saved the day! When I saw his face, I knew he was praying just like me, and I knew he would be successful.

Once they were able to get liquid in him, Sweety perked right up and turned things around. 28-ish hours later, we were packed up to leave when the lab called and said they needed more blood! AAAAAHHHHHHHH! I'd thought we were done!

They decided to do a finger prick, rather than try to poke him anymore, but I think I'd just had it by then. I was tired, (you know what it's like to try and sleep at the hospital!) the room was warm, and Sweety's blood was all over the place, everywhere, but in the little tube. So I sat uselessly in a corner and sipped my stupid orange juice while they tortured my baby.

To Sweety's credit, he really toughed that one out. He held very still and just whimpered. No more panicking and screaming.

He's doing really well now. He's eating well and gaining strength each day. In fact he's already back up half a pound. :)

After dogging on the whole hospital experience, I must say that I'm so thankful that we have hospitals when we need them. I'm glad that they were able to fix Sweety so quickly and get him on the track to recovery. Hopefully it will be some time before we need to return!