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The journey of a thousand miles begins with...the perfect pair of shoes.

Friday, August 19, 2011

Where I've been-sick, sick Han Solo, and learning German for icky things

Hello gentle readers. I'll bet you've been wondering where I've been. Sadly, I was not off on some fabulous trip with my beloved Johnny Depp. I was in the hospital with my sweet little Han Solo. He's home now and doing much better though, so fear not.
About 2 weeks ago (now) he developed a terrible cough that ended all the wonderful sleeping through the night he was doing (BOO!). It got worse and worse (seriously, he'd cough for an hour at a time) and then he started having diarrhea. Holy crap (literally). On Thursday (after the Mon the coughing stated), I took him to the peds, but all the peds were booked, so we had to see a Nurse Practitioner, who Indy had seen in the past, and of whom we were not fond. She told us it was nothing and treated my like an overwrought first time mom (despite the fact that I've managed to get Indy to the age of 9). She told us to go home and it would all go away.
Friday night, the vomiting started. It was not good. Sat morning, I decided we were going to the doc again. I had to get authorization to take him to the local Kinderklinik (pediatric hospital) and after speaking to the on call nurse for less than 10 minutes I was told to take him in immediately.
We arrived at the Kinderklinik and were taken straight back (German hospitals are freaking amazing that way-check in and straight to the back you go). The doc came in less than 5 minutes later and asked me some questions and checked him out. She said he needed to be admitted and needed an IV right away. In his head. WHAT??  I have to say, he took the IV far better than I did (I started crying before they even got the needle out of the package).  He didn't cry over the needle (didn't even flinch when it went in), but was pissed to no end that they were holding his head still.  BTW, the doctor put the IV in and drew his blood.  She then took the blood back to the lab, ran the tests herself and came back in less than 20 minutes to tell me his blood work was fine.  Impressive.  I called James Bond weeping and he and Indy hopped in the car and headed to the hospital.
We were put on the infectious ward in a multi-person room.   We were more than willing to pay extra for a private room (like we had when he was born), but they don't have them.  It seems counterproductive to put a bunch of sick kids in a room together, doesn't it?  I got a crash course in the names for disgusting bodily functions in German.  Most of the nurses spoke English, but I made a point to find out what the specific words were so I could communicate with the ones who didn't.  Some things sound far better in German than they do in English.
The first night, we had only one roommate, a 6 year old girl, who was turning 7 the next day.  Han Solo got IV fluids all night, and woke up coughing several times.  My poor little man.  He took it all in stride and smiled and charmed the nurses with his pretty blue eyes and sweet nature.
Our roommate actually got to go home on her birthday, which made me happy because her family was LOUD.  Crazy loud.  We enjoyed several hours of silence before another baby (13 months) was brought in.  She had symptoms almost identical to Han Solo's.  Her mom was Chinese and the dad German.  The dad was in Japan filming a documentary on the recovery from the earthquake and couldn't get home.  She was a first time mom and a nervous wreck.  Between my broken German and her broken English (though it was admittedly better than my German), we managed to communicate fairly well.  The docs took Han Solo's IV out and told me I had to push fluids all night.  Both kids were mercifully asleep when at midnight we got another roommate (12 months).  The mom was ridiculously loud and very, very annoying.  She made noise until nearly 2am and kept slipping out to smoke!  She left her sick baby in the room alone (besides us of course) and went out for 30 minutes to smoke.  Good grief.  Her baby was grossly overweight and I didn't wonder why since the mom kept filling her bottle with orange soda.   Granted German orange soda is not the neon orange that American orange soda is and actually has some orange juice in it, but honestly.  I never saw this kid drink anything else.  We got almost no sleep that night because the mom kept getting up and making noise and waking up the babies.  I wanted to beat her.
The next morning I was exhausted beyond reason and so was Han Solo.  He was awoken almost every hour during the night.  The docs came in to check on him and I told them we were going home.  He was no longer on IV fluids and the only medication he was getting was a nebulizer, which I happen to have at home.  All I needed was the medicine and I could do those.  The young doctor was reluctant, but I told him, Han Solo would recover better when he could sleep.  The chief doctor came in a bit later and said it was fine for us to go home as long as we continued the breathing treatments.  We had to wait for his discharge papers, but as soon as we had them in hand, we were out the door.  When we got home, he went down for a nap and slept for 5 straight hours.  
He's doing much better now, though still has Husten and occasional  Durchfall (look it up).  It's time for a breathing treatment, so I'd better go.  I just didn't want you to think I'd fallen off the edge of the earth (or been whisked away by my beloved Johnny to a private island). 



4 comments:

deb said...

Oh jeez...glad he's doing better, but do keep us posted please.

instant student said...

Poor boy!
I am glad he is doing better now!

Confessions of a Plate Addict said...

Oh, my! What an ordeal for the two of you! I am so glad he's better! It's scary when they are so little! Keep us posted...hugs...Debbie

Amanda @ Serenity Now said...

Oh, you poor things!! What an awful thing for you guys to have to go through. :( I do, however, think it is cool that the doctors and nurses were willing to listen to you. As to the mom with the orange soda, seriously?! And they say Americans are unhealthy!! ;)

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