"Gone Viral" (The Old-Fashioned Way)

As the old saying goes, don't go to the hospital unless you want to get sick. Which is exactly what happened after Nathaniel's nephrology exam at Sick Kids last Monday. Within a day, he was lethargic, restless, and eventually, vomiting up his food. It took two separate doses of the ever-reliable anti-nauseant apo-ondansetron as prescribed by Dr. P, and more than a few difficult nights before he was back to his patented silly self...




And on Thursday night, as we were prepping for baths, out of nowhere Carter suddenly hurled up an Exorcist-sized dose across the bedroom. We monitored his symptoms for a few days (longer than we should have in retrospect), but since he's usually not hit as hard as his brother, we decided to wait and see what developed. By Sunday, he was horribly pale and unwilling to take in any fluids, so he was rushed to St. Joe's Just For Kids clinic for the first of what would be two marathon hospital visits in a single day. The pediatrician at St. Joe's warned that if Carter didn't begin consuming fluids within eight hours, we were to rush him to emergency.

After five straight days of doctor's visits, no sleep, and no end in sight, we were exhausted and a the end of our proverbial ropes. Thankfully, Lidia's mom offered to come all the way from Mississauga and stay to give us a much-needed hand. After five hours, it was pretty clear Carter wouldn't be drinking anything any time soon. So off we were back to our familiar haunt: Sick Kids Hospital.

It was Carter's first visit--we've been there so often I'd just assumed he'd already had a file, but all of the past excursions have concerned his brother. For all of the urgency, he wasn't acting particularly sick--still smiling and dancing on the scale as he was being weighed, and was ravenous for his Puffs treats, but would not take anything from a bottle--which I thought would sentence us to a wait of several hours. But we were seen fairly quickly, and as Carter played with Dr. Rosenbloom's name tag (he liked the monkey clip), we were relieved to learn that he wasn't dehydrated. The doctor at St. Joe's was a little overzealous--Carter was getting fluids and enough nourishment from the solids he was taking and had likely developed an aversion to the bottle because his stomach was sore and he was associating milk with cramps. It'd pass, we were assured.

So the improvised solution was to give him apple juice via a syringe, which Carter was more than willing to accept and we were sent back to the waiting room. Shortly after Canada won its first gold medal in the Winter Olympics, we were discharged and told to keep up the routine until Carter eventually came around.

And, he did...