So, we ended up back in the ER this afternoon.

After Aidan woke up this morning, it seemed like we were changing dirty diapers faster than a chain smoker lights up new cancer sticks. He was much more dehydrated than he was last night: his lips were chapped, his eyes sunken, his hands dry, and his breath had that scary ketone smell. So we immediately tried to get liquids into him. Aidan had other ideas and fought us tooth and nail. To the point that even squirting juice/water/Gatorade into his mouth resulted in him spitting it out and even gagging himself enough to cause himself to vomit. We threatened him with going back to the hospital, and after two hours of not getting much into him we made the decision to go.

So, back to Children’s. We arrived around noon and did the whole wait, triage, wait, assess, wait, release thing. 3 hours again. Not much direct help from the nurses and doctor but we managed to get more fluids into him while at the hospital, and the doctor gave us reassurance that we managed to bring him up to a hydration level that he wasn’t in danger (when we brought him in, it was a different story). Part of the concern was that he hadn’t peed for over 24 hours, and the doctor indicated that we weren’t going to leave until he did. And, wouldn’t you know it: a half-hour later he did.

Mind you getting fluids into him means force feeding him. Restraining all his limbs, holding his head back with one hand, forcing his jaw open with the other (while forming a bit of a dam with the webbing of my thumb so that as he spits the liquid out, it pools and goes back into his mouth). Gwen then uses a syringe to put 10 ml of fluid into his mouth. Every 5 minutes. No fun for anyone.

He’s been better this afternoon. We managed to get more fluids into him and then put him down for a nap. He slept 4pm to 7:30pm. After the nap, we pretty much set him up in front of the tube (what would we do without our MythTV box?!?) and tried again to coax fluids into him. We got to the point where he was asking for milk (but refusing everything else). Milk is his comfort food. The doctor had warned us that due to the virus he’d be pretty lactose intolerant for the next week and so no milk. So what to do? Back out to the grocery store (3rd visit in 24 hours: gatorade last night, Popsicles this afternoon) and picked up some lactose-free milk. He downed a bit more than 100ml of the bottle in about 5 minutes and stopped himself. We all waited in anticipation … and waited … and it stayed down.

Not too much longer he asked to go to bed. Not a problem. So, back to bed and asleep by 8:45 pm, with a little bit of a top-off with the ‘milk’. 9:30 pm now, and he’s asleep and hopefully he stays vomit and diarrhoea free all night long.

Now we have tonnes of laundry to do — we were down to summer time pyjamas for him (T’s, shorts, and a size too small). And sweet glorious sleep.

Ugh the past 48 hours have been interesting, in the ancient Chinese proverb sense.

Aidan caught the superflu that’s been (apparently) going around. And yes, both he and Gwen got a flu shot. He started throwing up Thursday afternoon, and that lasted well beyond midnight. Diarrhoea too. No one got a lot of sleep. We tried keeping him in bed with us so that if he threw up while sleeping, we’d know it. That didn’t work (it never works with Aidan) and we ended up putting him back in his bed at some ungodly hour.

Yesterday was a bit better … Gwen was able to get him to eat some solids and drink a little bit, but not nearly enough. Plus he developed a fever. He slept from 4 til a little after 7 and when he woke up, he took some fluids and applesauce … and then tossed them up again.

It was at this point that I consulted the BC Health Guide and then called the BC Nurseline. 10 minutes on hold, 10 minutes talking to a nurse. Decision: the boy was exhibiting enough signs of dehydration that we should take him into the emerg.

So, we packed everyone up (iPod, DSes, etc) and headed to what I *knew* was going to be a busy ER at BC Children’s. And it didn’t disappoint either. We arrived at about 8:15 pm had a quick (10 s) assessment by the triage nurse and then waited an hour before being properly triaged. The triage nurse gave us some Pedialyte to try to start rehydrating him (15 ml every 5 minutes) but Aidan, as stubborn as ever, absolutely refused to take any of it. After triage, I went to move the car from the 60 min in-front-of-emerg parking to the ‘long term’ parking lot. And when I got back, Gwen and Aidan were gone. I thought that they had disappeared into a bathroom, but it turns out they were taken to an assessment room. Apparently the triage placed us at a higher priority than the other 6 kids with flu that we watched get triaged ahead of us. It certainly surprised me.

We saw the attending shortly after that. What a really nice doctor. Don’t remember his name, but he had a great way with Aidan. The doctor made his own assessment, and got the nurse to give Aidan another dose of Tylenol (we’d been trying to keep him dosed, but he kept throwing it back up) and some sort of super-anti-nauseant. This was a tab that dissolved in Aidan’s mouth pretty much instantaneously. He wasn’t happy about it, but by this time didn’t have a lot of strength to fight too much. The plan was to take the anti-nauseant, wait 30 min, and then try again to introduce liquids to him. It ended up that we waited over an hour before being seen again.

But, the medicine stayed down, and when we started introducing liquids to him, he was 1) taking it, and 2) keeping it down. We didn’t get a lot into him, after another 30 minutes, the doctor was satisfied that Aidan had recovered enough to send us home. Tried Aidan on some Gatorade when we got home, but he was so tired and irritated about getting liquids forced into him that we didn’t take a lot.

So, it’s morning now. Aidan’s not up yet, but if he doesn’t take more liquids or continues throwing up, then we’ve got instructions to head back to the ER. On the plus side, it looks like he didn’t throw up overnight, so maybe we’re out of the woods.

Oh what fun. Did I mention the doctor says he’s contagious — of course, we knew that.