I am so exhausted. As many of you know, due the the plethora of electronic messaging outlets, we went to the hospital around 10:30 pm and left around 3:30 am. Summit had been unable to keep any liquids (or solids for that matter) down for over 8 hours and it was recommended to us that we took him to the ER for possible dehydration. I’m talking FOUNTAINS of vomit, it was like the Exorcist or something! As soon as we’d get him cleaned up and bathed, and drinking again, another round would start. He was surprisingly very cheery in between bouts of violent vomiting, actually which is part of why we waited so long to take him in. Also, he had diarrhea, the kind that sounded like you turned on a faucet. It was bad.
We got to the ER, signed in and waited for what felt like forever. We had the “screaming child”. He calmed down briefly to eat a few crackers and drink water then vomit it all up. (Luckily we had learned by this time and he was wearing a large covering bib with sleeves and a deep pocket. It saved us…) It got to the point where he didn’t have any tears which was scary. Ben carried him around and he was able to doze on and off for awhile. When we finally got in and checked out, he calmed down. In fact, he was smiling charmingly at the nurses and I ground my teeth. He didn’t even look that sick anymore. They did tests, weighed him then checked us in and gave us our own room.
At that point Ben realized that he had left the water running in Summit’s new pool. We had set it up in the living room for him to see it, then in the vomiting chaos, we set a naked Summit in the pool because we knew some vomiting action would happen soon and it did. Ben drug it outside to clean it and turned the hose on and left it on. He left to go turn it off because it had been 3 hours by this time. Summit was beyond exhausted at this time. I curled up on the bed with him and sang to him. He watched me the whole time, his eyes dark in the low lighting. He held my finger tightly and finally dozed off. I thought of when he was a baby and used to fall asleep on me like that. He never sleeps with us now, so in the middle of all this turmoil, my heart felt joy to just see him sleep and hear his steady breathing.
Meanwhile, Ben was driving home and ran out of gas. Yes. Really. About a mile from the house. So, at around 2 am he sets out on a run towards our house to get a gas can and turn off the water. While on his jog, 2 guys suddenly appeared in front of him, turning off a street running, startling Ben. They were wearing running shorts and apparently out for a 2 am jog! They awkwardly ran in step for a few minutes before Ben turned onto our street. He turned off the water, got in the other car, went to the gas station, and drove back to the Subaru. As he filled the gas tank, a man wearing a hoodie was riding his bicycle towards him. Ben thought this would be a great time for some guy to attack him, and planned out how to defend himself. But as the guy rode by he yelled “morning!” in a cheery voice. Ben commented that he saw more people out for recreational purposes than he saw cars on the road.
At the hospital I continued to (in)patiently wait. I finally stood in the hall and started flagging people down. By this time Summit had held down some crackers and water for 2 hours which was a record for him. Ben arrived and we discussed just leaving. The nurse encouraged us to wait it out because she said Summit could actually be seriously ill even though he seemed better. It was kind of embarrassing though because he hadn’t exhibited any of the symptoms that we came in for. The doctor finally came in around 3:15 am. He said that Summit appeared to be not dangerously dehydrated and gave him medicine to keep him from vomiting. He reassured us that it was good that we brought him in. As we were walking in the hall to leave, however, Summit projectile vomited the contents of his stomach once again. We can make a crowd quickly, people. Part of me was like “YEAH! I told you!!!” and Ben agreed. They put all of our vomit soaked items in a hazardous waste doggie bag and we left to the singing of early morning birds in the misty parking lot.