It’s the small hours of Thursday morning this time and it’s time for Unexpected Trips: Part Deux. Jaxon had been throwing up since 7pm and although I felt like a paranoid first time mother I wanted him to get checked out.
The first two times he threw up I wasn’t entirely worried just figured it would pass but while we were out for date night and Uncle S was on duty at our house he threw up 3 more times. Uncle S was again a super star and took care of Jaxon.
We got home and decided that, that was too many time for him to have thrown up in that short amount of time. I rang the Out of Hours line to get a call back from the doctors and then we packed for an overnight stay. I remembered comfy clothes but forgot my toothbrush and that was the thing I needed Tuesday morning lol.
So it’s now almost 1am and we need to wake Jaxon for his next dose of diarolyte but let’s rewind.
So we arrived in BEDOC again around 10pm. We were seen by a nurse who took Jaxon’s sats. His oxygen levels were 98% and his heart rate was normal. We were sent back out into the waiting room where he threw up again.
I was getting twitchy, I’d already explained twice on the phone what was going on and then again to the Nurse – I know they were just doing their job but my insides were churning because I couldn’t fit it – I couldn’t make him better.
We then went into see the On Call GP and repeated the story of what had happened including the fact that we were already admitted this week for observations. When Jaxon threw up in the middle of the consultation she could tell that we weren’t being melodramatic – the puke was now a very bright stomach acid yellow. I managed to hitch him out of his car seat and over the sink in the consulting room rather than him just throwing down himself or down me. The doctor attempted to get hold of the on call paeds team but the automated switchboard wasn’t playing ball and when she direct dialled the team they weren’t responding to their pages which was stressing me out a little bit too!
In the end I’m not sure if she got through or if she just rang Riverbank and told them we were coming but we got our referral letter and off we went. On the most direct route there’s a door that you need a security pass to get through after a certain time. It happened that as we were about to turn round and walk the longer route that we had done earlier in the week, a security guy walked past us – Chris asked him if he could let us through the door but he didn’t have the right pass, but as we were stood there a lad walked past and the security guy asked him if he could help us, rather than just letting us through the first door – he escorted us all the way to the front door of Riverbank Ward – I said to Chris he should have a gold star – I wish I’d taken his name so I could write into the hospital and tell his boss what a superstar he was.
We were put in the bed opposite to were we were before – the cot that Jaxon had been in, was still in the bay we had been in and I expected them to put us back in that same bay but they didn’t. We had a lovely student nurse called Chloe, she came over and introduced herself by name and took all our details to fill in a medical history sheet. While we were sat there the Matron from Monday walked past and stopped by to say hello. I made some comment about seeing her again then explained how we’d just been discharged less than 48 hours ago and she looked puzzled and asked why we’d been in before. I said “We were in with suspected cyanosis” and then penny dropped like a rock! “Oh yeah blue arms!”. Haha! Is it a good thing or a bad thing that she’s remembered him?
We were given a bottle of diarolyte for him to drink although with a chart to record how much he had and if he vomited, passed urine or had a bowel movement. The first dosage was 9ml to make sure he could keep that down. He managed to keep it all down but did dribble some down himself. Every 10 minutes between then and about 2am we had to give him 18ml, when we switched from a syringe thing to a teat it was more of a guess so one time he ended up with 25ml instead of 18 but he kept it all down which was the main issue.
We changed his nappy and although it was still quite dry there was enough liquid in there to show he wasn’t dehydrated. The doctor that we had was really lovely – she wasn’t the same doctor that we had but when I said that we’d been in previously she did send the Matron to look for any notes that were filed from our earlier trip so that they could look at the blood tests that Jaxon had taken. I had taken some post it notes with me so that I could do some other bits if I was filling time. I got some out and used them to make extra notes on our chart because the box wasn’t big enough. A tick worked for some of the boxes but I figured more info was better than none especially as I didn’t want to get discharged only to be back there again today. The matron came to check on us and was very impressed with the extra notes especially when I said about more info being better than none.
Around 2am we finished the final dose and by 3am we were home and back in bed. Jaxon didn’t settle straight away but I gave him a little feed of milk and that helped him go to sleep. I think he woke up a second time but I’m not entirely sure whether I got up for him or if that’s when Chris got up for him, the problem with sleep deprivation is that things get a little foggy lol. Chris gave Jaxon to me, he had a feed and we both went back to sleep. We woke up around 10am when my alarm went off (as I needed to be up in case Our Sidekick didn’t have his keys to get back in following his sleepover).
We took up residence in front of the TV and watched Mulan and started Hercules. I’ve now watched Grey’s Anatomy and now on Bones while Jaxon naps. Hopefully that’s the end of unexpected trips to hospital for a while. We have got an open entry pass thingy for 24 hours from discharge just in case we need to go back – I’m really hoping we don’t need it but I am grateful that the doctor gave it to us.
