♥ Let's Play Catch Up

I know that it has been a week since my last post and I swear I have good reason. After my last post, where I so boldly announced that Lily was on the mend and feeling much better, we ended up in the hospital. Apparently those Pedialyte Popsicles didn't save us a trip after all. We are still at a loss of how things turned so fast. Monday morning I awoke to what I thought was the sound of more vomiting coming from Lily's room, only to discover she was violently dry heaving. After her stomach settled she downed a fair amount of water which she promptly threw up. At this point we knew something was wrong. Our normally energetic morning girl was completely lethargic. Almost unable to hold her head up at times. After a quick call to the health line that confirmed what we already knew, we headed to ER. In less than 10 minutes we were in a room and within another 10 minutes had been seen by the ER doctor. He assured us with confidence that yes, she was dehydrated, but after a couple hours with some IV fluids she would be 100%. Sounded easy. Fast forward 3 hours later and 11 IV attempts. We are now being admitted to the pediatric ward. Her veins, that are already very small (she takes after me in that department) are collapsed from the dehydration. Even the anesthesiologist gave up after 7 attempts and this guy is supposed to be able to get an IV anywhere. It was truly heart breaking to help hold my baby girl down while they jabbed her with a needle over and over. All the while she is fighting with all her strength and repeating "No" "All done" "mommy" "daddy". I would have easily taken 100 needles if it meant not a single one for her. We started orally hydrating her by syringing Pedialyte into her mouth and hoping that would be enough to hydrate her enough to eventually get the IV in. In 8 hours we got about 6oz in her and could already tell the difference. Then the torture started again. The pediatrician decided we still needed to get an IV in her since her blood work was still not satisfactory. Four more attempts and countless tears later we finally had an IV in. It was sadly in her head and worse, it was in the wrong spot and had to be removed. At this point Curtis and I said no more (as well as the nurses) and hunkered down for a night continuing to get as much liquid into her as possible. Thankfully by the next day there was mass improvement and we started to see glimmers of our little girl. One more night in the hospital and she was back and as peppy as ever.
It was by far the most terrifying experienced I have had as a parent yet. It was also humbling. Especially since on ward there were pediatric cancer patients. Quickly reminded us that it could be so much worse. We saw parents that had obviously spent may weeks if not months in that hospital but their child's side.
Amongst the trauma Lily was still able to be cute and entertaining at times. The way she would say "bye" to the lab techs and nurses after screaming/crying during their whole visit. Or standing at the door trying to convince us it was her turn to ride the bike that a little boy kept passing by on (she was in isolation). And my favorite was her repeated reminders to us "I all better", which have continued.
Since getting home on Wednesday our time has been basically spent cleaning (we bleached every surface in the house), getting Lily back into her routine, helping her forget the trauma (I think it was a lot more traumatic for us but she did seem to have night terrors for a few nights and ended up sleeping with us), and just going about our daily lives again. Lily is 110% and wearing us out .... thank god.