Tabby's late night visit to the emergency room

There is a 24-hour stomach bug making it's rounds in our area.  Solomon had it Sunday and then I had it Monday night.  Yesterday Tabby was going about her morning routine when she said her stomach suddenly didn't feel right.  Then Solomon threw up again. Then she did.  Thankfully I did not anymore.  So Tabby stayed home from school.

By mid-afternoon, she began complaining that her whole body was in immense pain.  As it grew worse, she began having breathing issues.  (She described it as her lungs feeling "crumpled" and "burning" which makes it hard to get a deep breath.  This continued until she feel asleep.  Then in the evening, she woke up and the pain was still there.  Now she said it was all over her body and that it felt like someone snapping her back into pieces.  She cried off and on.  I was looking up symptoms online and we just couldn't figure out what was up.

At about 9:30 she was crying and afraid for me to leave her because she thought she was going to die, it was so bad.  So ... I packed a little bag for the hospital and off we went.

The emergency room was hopping so we had a longer wait than I had hoped.  But finally Tabby was in a bed.  She had blood drawn for lab work, was hooked up to an IV, and had a chest x-ray done. 

Over the next couple hours, two different pain medications were give to her but neither really helped much.  The doctors were puzzled.  Lab results were good.  The x-ray showed that only a small spot of the pneumonia remained her left lung.  She had no congestion of any kind.  So they finally gave her morphine.  Oh yeah - that did it! 

Tabby was discharged about 5:30 this morning.  I was instructed to follow up with her pediatrician today.  And she was given a new toy.  A spirometer.  She is to practice breathing into it five times a day to strengthen her lungs.

Here she is, showing her "excitement" over the new device.  (As you can imagine, Hunter is fascinated by it and wanted to know all about it as soon as he saw it.)

Tabby's pediatrician wasn't totally sure what was going on either, when we saw her today.  She is going to do some research.  However, she did have one theory right off the bat.  Typically, when Tabby's body is fighting something, she gets a fever, then headache.  However, her body is still really depleted from the pneumonia.  And this time it reacted differently to fighting the stomach bug.  There are people, who's bone marrow reacts to these "fights."  And the way it reacts is for the body to feel intense pain all over.

Hmmmm.  The bone marrow and immune system work together so that does make sense.

But I just pray that this is it for hospitals for a long time for us.  We are SOOOO ready to get back to a more steady normal around here.