Lilli gets Sick, Part 1

From November 1st and 2nd…

Friday November 1st started out in the usual way.  We woke Lilli up after getting ourselves ready for school and she ran and jumped in her sister’s bed and woke her up in her usual aggressive manner, which for some reason Abbi doesn’t seem to mind at all.


She was excited about the day and even more excited about finally getting to trick or treat that night, but before we left she mentioned her stomach hurting so I gave her a little chewable Pepto and told her it would feel better soon.  As we were dropping off Abbi she mentioned it again and as we walked to her classroom she had tears in her eyes so I thought maybe this was a little more serious than indigestion (understatement!!) I told a teacher I was going to take her to work with me for a while and see if this was just a passing thing or something more.  She kept saying she “felt like she needed to throw up but she wasn’t going to”.  I took her to the cafeteria and let her pick out some cereal and she played with all the “toys” in my office while we listened to Disney music and I did some work.  She’d periodically feel bad and then fine, and around lunchtime I decided she just didn’t feel that great so Brent came and got her and took her home.  He had also called our pediatrician’s office, and they mentioned something was going around where you felt really queasy for a day but nothing more than that, so we figured she had picked that up somewhere.

You know she feels bad when she falls asleep at 11 am with the ipad in her lap…


She did enjoy the awesome sandwich we had made her for lunch.  Too bad her teachers didn’t get to see our handiwork this year!! We are kind of famous for crazy stuff like that there, however the Easter that I put all her food in tiny eggs is probably what I am most known for….


As the day went on she started to feel worse and worse, and we started to get worried.  She would start crying about her stomach hurting and no longer mentioned feeling nauseated.  She would just periodically cry and cry, and scream as loud as she could while being doubled over that her stomach hurt.  Around 7 pm we started to get more worried so we called the on call doctor to see what she thought about it.  She never had a fever or complained of anything else after this point besides stomach pains.  The doctor said we were the third similar call that night, so she felt it was related to stomach viruses going around and suggested just Tylenol for the pain and the hot water bottle and heating pad for the cramps.  So, we started doing all of those things and were up most of the night, and from about 4 am on it was pretty bad.

All of Saturday was bad.  She could only rest periodically for waking up crying and crying about her stomach hurting so bad, and it was no fun to watch with no solutions to give her.  We called the doctor several times that day and really didn’t get many suggestions from her.  They had ended up with about 7 similar calls on Friday night so she still felt it was a stomach issue, and suggested that even though she had regularly been pooping that perhaps some constipation was going on.  So we tried to get her to eat some various suggested foods and even did a suppository on her (zero fun) and having a little poop didn’t help at all.  The poor thing really had not eaten or drunk anything since breakfast, and had mostly just laid around lethargically all afternoon.  We’d take turns laying with her and playing with Abbi, because it was so nerve-wracking listening to Lilli cry most of the day.  Nothing was helping and as it came close to the evening we were starting to worry it could be something more serious, so after talking to the pediatrician on call again she suggested we head to Vandy ER and rule out “the bad stuff”.  With no fever and no pain isolated to the side, we knew it wasn’t appendix but there were a lot of other things it could be.


Brent sped ahead with Lilli, and luckily Uncle Eric was able to come and stay with Abbi.  We definitely didn’t want to take her into the ER for all the germs there and with how irritable she would get with all the waiting.  We were SO thankful for Uncle Eric and Grant!

















I’m sure she had a great time playing around with them, if only she could tell us more than Momma and Dadda!


Of course the ER was packed.  On a Saturday night it was pretty obvious that some people had nothing better to do than come and get some random, every day type things looked at.  Our healthcare system is beyond messed up.  There should be an “emergency room” and a “I don’t have insurance so this is basically my doctor’s office” room.  It’s pretty annoying.  So we waited and waited and waited.  It took over an hour just to get back to a room.

















And naturally that was just the beginning.  All told, the entire visit was about 5 hours.  Somehow that doesn’t even make the $2,500 bill we just received any better (insurance paid all but $150).  The poor thing was just so worn out from being in pain, that after she was finally settled in a room she slept better than she had all night and all day.  And once they got there she noticed she was in her pajamas.  Ha! So fashion conscience….


After waiting and waiting and waiting we talked to the resident and then waiting and waiting the doctor and a couple of nurses in there and eventually after waiting some more she had Xrays done and a stomach ultrasound.


It was pretty bizarre watching her get an ultrasound after having had so many over the last few years myself while pregnant! They looked all around her stomach and abdominal organs and we could see the food and gas passing through and the tech was great to explain to use everything she was seeing in there.


She didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, which was good in that some of the major “really bad” things weren’t going on, but bad in that they had no diagnosis.  We headed back to our room to wait and wait some more for the “official results” and this guy came in to take her vitals.  She was pretty passed out and didn’t pay any attention to him, but as he left he told her to “feel better soon”.  She popped up and said “I DON’T.” Ha! That’s my feisty girl.  She had expected for them to make her feel better, and overall Vanderbilt failed BIG TIME that night.


And of course we waited and waited and Lilli and I fell asleep.  The resident came in to say she didn’t see anything wrong on the Xrays, Ultrasound, or Urine Analysis and that she just believed it was a virus and we needed to keep her hydrated and trying to eat and it should slowly get better.  So then we waited for another half an hour just to be discharged.


Lilli was basically passed out at this point and we were just glad she was sleeping, although we were pretty certain we’d be up with her before long.  She we left with no diagnosis, and not even a prescription, but at least we knew it wasn’t anything serious.

We hadn’t even had dinner or anything to eat, so we swung by Sonic and picked up some food and had a late night “picnic” with Uncle Eric before he and Grant headed home……

…to be continued….



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