My Poor Baby

It was the day of our first Parent-Teacher Conference. As nervous as first time parents are at these new experiences, we walked into our son's classroom. Mrs. S warmly greeted us and handed me a "normal" sized chair as compared to the kinder chairs the other parents sat in for this kind of meeting. Before she sat down, she said, "I just want to say one thing, I LOVE YOUR SON." He received a glowing report. Of course, it was mentioned that he has a habit of interrupting but other than that, it was all warm & fuzzy. On that day, I received the highest compliment that I have ever had. She said, "Your son is genuinely happy all the time." To have a happy child...well, as a mom is there anything greater that I can achieve or want for my 5 year old? She mentioned that he is the only child that tells her each morning, "Good morning Mrs. S!" with a smile on his face. That stuck with me....

That was at 3pm. It was 10:30 pm and we had just switched off the evening news. I heard a little cough followed by a whimper. MSW jumped out of bed and went to doodle's room. I knew it was bad when the lights flipped on and MSW was running to the bathroom with doodle in his arms. The poor baby had thrown up every where and it was still coming up. It went on and on.

He had nothing left to vomit but his body was still taking him through the motions. It got to the point that he would start to faint each time he began to vomit. His lips were completely purple. It took us all of 5 seconds to decide an ER trip was in order.

There is a brand new Methodist Stone Oak Hospital less than 5 minutes from us. Just as we pulled up to the doors, poor baby started again. MSW suggested that I go in and begin the paperwork while he waited for the vomit to stop and then he would bring him in. There was no time for me to think what the perception would be of me (in all my pregnant glory) to run in through the front doors of the ER holding a towel and vomit all over me. I waved off the wheelchair and through a winded voice, "not me, my son, outside, sick, coming in, give me papers."

He was immediately taken back and seen right away. It was determined to give him Zofran and 15 cc of fluid every 15 minutes. It took a couple hours but eventually the vomiting stopped and the dehydration was treated. His smile was back too.

A sick child is the most heart wrenching experience for the parental unit. God bless those parents whose children are fighting cancer and other terrible diseases. I can't, nor do I want to, even imagine.

We dodged another flu bullet- it was just a stomach virus that came on hard and took him down with no mercy. He's all better now. Through it all, I kept thinking back to our earlier conversation with Mrs. S. Through it all, he kept smiling.