Hell Week

Sickly, originally uploaded by Ava's Antics.

Sick. Dog-gone sick. Grossly sick. Extraordinarily sick. All these and more, Ava has been sick.

Sunday: Ava starts occasionally messing with her ears. Is this coincidental or intentional? She's still acting otherwise happy and normal. Does this foreshadow things to come? Hard to say at this point.

Monday: Content, but still having ear-hand interactions.

Tuesday: Ear rubbing and pulling subjectively increase. Less content throughout the day, escalating at bedtime. Normally she is down and out without a fight when we put her to bed at seven. She refuses to go gentle in that good night.... After three hours of crying, cradling, standing in our crib, and a bath she FINALLY laid blissfully unconscious.

Wednesday: God in heaven, we owe you one. She slept through the night. We surely didn't see that one coming. Things aren't too bad in the morning. She has breakfast, goes to daycare, eats lunch, gets picked up and brought home by Doni..... and then the feces hits the fan.

• Afternoonish: Looser than normal bowel movement, yet not quite diarrhea. Ava prides herself on the consistency of her stools from poop to poop, so this was a red flag.
  
• 4pm: Vomit. Lots of vomit. Didn't she eat four hours ago? That a lot of vomit for not eating for four hours. And distance! She must have been aiming for the TV, because this went 4-5 feet from where she was sitting straight in that direction. We half expected her head to spin 360 degrees (as in The Exorcist), but thankfully this was not the case.
• 6pm: Dad's home! Ava is refusing to drink anything. We offer her apple sauce. She takes it well and then promptly spews it all over her father's chest 30 minutes later. Dad takes a shower and places a call to the on-call doctor. As she is vomiting and not taking anything by mouth, she is at risk for becoming dehydrated. The on-call doctor recommends that we take her to the emergency room because she may need IV fluids if she continues to refuse liquids.
• 7pm: We arrive at the newly remodeled emergency department of our local hospital. It is really quite nice compared to the emergency departments I've seen in my medical school experience. As we sit in the waiting room, Ava breaks in the newly tiled floor with a splash of vomitus. We iterate and reiterate the whole time line of events to 2-3 nurses, 1 resident, and 1 attending (I can sympathize with my patients' frustration with this). Dad is able to get his first look at his darling's ear drums as she catches some ZZZ's. It is his and the resident's opinion that she has an ear infection. The attending is not so convinced. Since she is not dehydrated she does not require IV fluids. She is given Zofran (for her nausea) to see if she will then take any juice by mouth. No luck. She is dead-set on refusing her bottle. We head home and she surprisingly goes to bed without much fuss.

Thursday: At 3am Ava wakes and is understandably thirsty. She drinks 3 oz of apple juice and refuses to drink more. We'll take what we can get. Dad stays home with her today. This girl starts sleeping like its her job. She doesn't get into any deep sleep because every time I move while holding her she is immediately awake. After several attempts at getting her to sleep in her crib (so I could take a shower) I am able to sneak away without arousing her. Later, Mom and Dad are with her at the doctor's office. His assessment is that she has bilateral otitis media (ear infections in both ears). We get a prescription for the antibiotic that finished off her last bout of ear infections and go on our way. The rest of the day is pretty uneventful other than the $40 copay for her antibiotic.

Friday: It's Doni's turn to stay home. Let open the flood gates. As it did last time, this antibiotic clears Ava's intestine of all of its "good" bacteria. We literally change at least a baker's dozen of dirty diapers in one 24 hour period. On the other hand, Ava is starting to act less tired and more comfortable. She even starts drinking small amounts from her bottle! We'll take what we can get. Ava's doctor calls in a different antibiotic to the pharmacy. This antibiotic comes with no copay because it comes at NO CHARGE. Meijer.... you the man. It still hurts that we paid a $40 copay for one day of her other antibiotic though. Clearly, Ava needed a bath by the end of the day. Imagine an octopus spraying a jet of ink underwater. It shoots out and then slowly diffuses into the surrounding seawater. Now imagine that octopus is Ava, the ink is liquid poo, and the seawater is bathwater. I'll leave it at that other than to say that this bath saved us two diapers. We did, however, have to drain, refill the tub twice, and give it a good scrub down afterwards. The joys of parenting.

Saturday: Ava slept the whole night and woke up this morning with only a wet diaper! Can I get an AMEN!?! Not only that, but she also drinks 7 oz of formula. This was poor judgment on our part, as her likely shrunken stomach decided this was too much. To save the hassle of cleaning a massive mess off the couch and carpet, I scooped her up and took her to the linoleum in our entryway. Fountains of formula shot forth onto my neck and chest. With so many immediate needs, Doni asked for direction. I did so as if I was calling a code:

• "Put the dogs away STAT." Sparky feels a need to lap up any and all liquids that come forth from Ava's body. I refer you to Wednesday and Friday and I will leave it at that.
  
• "Wipe off the couch with baby wipes."
• "Did we get any on the floor? No? Good."

At this point it was safe to say Ava wasn't likely to throw up any more. We stripped her down, I disposed of the shirt I had worn for 30 minutes, and everyone got a good wipe-down. Since then, she's been sleeping well and has started drinking small amounts of Gatorade without a fuss. Join me in crossing my fingers as things look like they're turning around.