House of Vomit

I was wrong - it wasn't me who picked up Adik's stomach bug, it was Abang!

Poor Abang. When I fetched him from kindergarten on Tuesday, his teacher informed me that he had vomited several times, although very little came out. Of course the story was spiced up by his classmates, all of whom were eagerly telling me how “today he just vomit, vomit, vomit” and “upstairs he vomit, then downstairs also he vomit” all the time while Abang was crying away, most likely due to embarrassment than anything else.

By evening, he had vomited more than 10 times and he couldn’t even hold down water. So another trip to the ER it was for Mummy (2 trips in just 2 days!). The doctor administered a suppository and instructed me to administer another one after 8 hours, if required.

Unfortunately, he still couldn’t hold anything down. The next morning, I administered another suppository but still he threw up whatever he took. That’s when I realised it was serious and suspected he might need to be admitted.

His paediatrician confirmed my suspicions and we started the admissions procedure. Abang was so weak and tired from all that vomiting, plus the lack of nutrition going into his body, that he just sat on my lap the whole time and leaned his head either on my chest or on the table in front of him.

Putting the needle in for the IV drip was quite traumatic. It was made worse by the fact that the doctor had a difficult time finding a vein. So they actually had to poke him twice. Poke once, needle goes in, crying starts, “no, no, cannot” says the doctor, then needle comes out, crying continues, look for another vein, squeeze arm really hard, crying even harder, needle goes in again, get some blood out for blood test, crying crying crying all the way.

Still, by the time we went up to his room, his mood was much better. In fact, when Ant J came to visit about an hour later, he invited her for a sleep over at the hospital!

“Ant J, would you like to go back and take your baju tidur and sleep here with me tonight?” he asked, as if it were a camping trip.

Ant J was surprised but open to the idea and we agreed that she could be my backup if he preferred her to stay with him that night instead of me (Daddy was, unfortunately, away on business).

By that time he had stopped vomiting and would even eat a bit but more importantly he was drinking – and holding down – water. It was relatively calm overnight, except for one occasion when he had to be ‘force fed’ the paracetamol half asleep.

For those who have had the misfortune of staying in hospital, you will know to expect the 6am barge-in by the nurses. On cue – nurses came in, lights came on, thermometer stuffed under Abang’s arm and then I realised that his overnight diaper had leaked. After changing him and getting his sheets changed, there was no way he would go back to sleep.

When his doctor came to do his rounds, Abang was obviously better and I could report decent input and NORMAL output and Doc gave us the thumbs up to go home that evening. Abang was definitely better as he could push his own IV stand from his room to the playroom.

Daddy came back from his trip and was with us most of the afternoon. In fact, when Abang woke up from his nap he was so happy to see his Daddy there. When they went for a walk around the ward, he got Daddy to carry him and I was sure Abang gave me a very contented smile - one that said, "I'm so happy to have my Daddy again!"

As nice as the nurses were, we were all really looking forward to going home.

By 6:15pm we were all back under one roof. Hooray!