Wednesday night/ Thursday morning Tiara woke up at 1am again. She kept making her usual demands, ipod, movie, crayons, pictures but then she started coughing. Oh crap, I ran to the cabinet and grabbed a towel. When she coughs more than 2 times in a row it means she is going to vomit. I tried screaming to Lou to help but he didn’t move. Luckily I made it back to the bed in time to capture all the throw up. I am pretty professional at this because she vomits at least twice a week and in the past up to 4 times a day.
Anyway, I wasn’t sure if she had the flu or it was a seizure. I took her temperature and it was 97. Humm, if it is really low, like 95 or 96 it is a seizure, but 97, not sure. I got her comfortable and then it happened again. Oh this isn’t looking good. By 5:00am, she had gotten sick 4 times and I was pretty convinced it was the stomach flu. I tried giving her Zofran for the nausea at 7:30 am but she kept vomiting. Panic was starting to set in because if I couldn’t get her to keep down her siezure meds at 8:30 am that would mean a trip to the UCLA Emergency Room. Lou finally got his butt up and I was so mad at him, I was rather crazy. Apparently, last night he overindulged in his wine which is why he wasn’t able to help me all night. Luckily it was his day off, so I knew I had help.
I emailed her doctor and she responded that she was out of town but if Tiara couldn’t keep her meds down, she suggested we go to the ER, just like I thought. UGh. I had a thought. What if I give her a dose of rectal Valium, Diastat, to hold her over and try and keep the seizures at bay. I did that at 9am and it seemed to work. I wasn’t seeing any seizures but she was still throwing up. I called the doctor on call at UCLA and while I was waiting for her to call back, I started packing our hospital gear. Oh no. I feel really sick. I ran to bathroom and almost threw up. Change of plans. I can’t make it to UCLA as apparently I have the same stomach flu. Now what?
I looked at Lou and explained the situation. He looked super fearful as he realized that if she couldn’t take her medicine he would be taking her to CHOC by himself. By 10am I was really feeling bad and she was no better but I decided to try and get her strongest med down. Lou gave her Depakote at 10:50am and she puked at 11:10am. “Do you think, it stayed down?” He asked me looking super stressed. “Probably not, because 30 minutes is usually the clearance but I only saw blood and bile in her vomit, not medicine so we have a chance.” The doctor finally returned my call and said I could keep giving her the rectal Diastat every 6 to 8 hours as needed and could hold off from coming to the ER unless she really started seizing. Thank God.
I crawled in bed with TT and left Lou to take care of us. His biggest job was stopping Tiara from pinching me and pulling my hair. Every minute she would hug me and then grab a chunk of hair or a fold of skin and pull. I would scream, Lou would come running and then Tiara would yell at him, “I HATE YOUR FACE, I AM MAD AT YOUR FACE!” This is her new favorite saying. And then she would cry.
So as of 4:50 pm when I am writing this, we are still at home and not in the hospital and I am very grateful. I just got out of bed to write this one, because my brain was melting into the pillows and two I thought I would die of boredom, oh I guess those are the same thing.
Anyway, now that I am up, I feel worse not better and am fearful I am going to throw up any minute so I will conclude now.
Have a great weekend and I pray your family does not get the stomach flu……..
