Our Baby Size Life!

Posts Tagged ‘puke’

Today’s post is the finale of my “Sam’s Big Gift” mini series of posts detailing, in hopefully humorous fashion, our adventures of last week’s trip to the hospital.  To get yourself acquainted with the rest of the series, why not read up on Part 1, Part 2 and (while you’re at it) Part 3 before proceeding?  It’ll put you into the context of what happened and how we got to the hospital.

And now for the rest of the story…

After my episode with the needle from Hell, nurse Sandi (not her real name) let me rest up a bit before “The Big Move”.  The nurses now deemed us self sufficient enough to be placed into an observation room, away from the crazy happenings of the triage hallway/cot area.   This was a welcome change, even though it took them 20 minutes of tugging and pushing my stretcher around the tight hallways of the hospital, before settling on a room that could fit both my stretcher and Melissa’s.  They would put me in one ammonia smelling room only to come fetch me three minutes later to park me in a bio-waste smelling room.  Just as Sandi pushed me into that nasty second room, an orderly came by and said that he hadn’t cleaned that room yet hence the smell of the previous occupant lingering in the air. Nice.  Now I had a throat full of bile and a nose full of sh*t.

So off we went for another session of musical chairs, this time landing me in a room with an 80 year old lady.  Sandi apparently thought that this lady, who was two and a half times my age and had a belly button between her boobs, was my wife.  Sigh… Enter nurse Mandi (never saw nurse Sandi again) who whisked me away yet again, away from my geriatric roommate to finally bring me to the last room I would visit in this hospital.  Mandi pushed me into the double sized room and assured me Melissa was on her way and considering how the last 20 minutes went, I hardly believed her.  But then, a noise found itself to my ear.  It was low a first, almost an unpleasant, incomprehensible buzz that quickly grew louder into a jabbering of words being rapidly and enthusiastically exchanged.  Words in the voice of Melissa and her sister chatting away as they approached the room.  Happy to see Melissa for the first time since we left the ambulance a few hours earlier, I greeted her with a blown kiss.  She smiled too, happy to be back together.

Myriam, Melissa’s sister, brought our bags to the door of the room and repeated a routine she must have done a hundred and sixty times that day: throw on a visitor’s gown and put on rubber gloves.  You see, Melissa and I were in “quarantine” due to the unknown nature of our illness.  So Myriam had no choice but to put on and take off, every time she stepped from or into the room, her gown and gloves.  Even back in the triage area, she had to change when she went between our cots. An annoying precaution to be sure, but to this day she hasn’t been sick!  Myriam was a great help to us and we were thankful that she was there as we are not sure what we would’ve done without her.

Read on here!

If you haven’t done it yet, I recommend you read Sam’s Big Gift Part 1 and Part 2 before proceeding.  It’ll put things into context for you and help you avoid brain cramping questions like: “Why is he wearing socks and sandals in a hospital with Jack & Jill ?”.

Moving right along…

The ambulance pulled into the hospital around 11 A.M. and Jill asked me to get out of the ambulance first.  Now this meant I had to cram myself between Melissa’s stretcher and Jill’s prominent bodily presence.  Jill was sitting and I had to bend over because of the low ceiling, which in terrific ice-breaking combination, lined her face up with my sweaty pyjama-pant ass.  Nice.  Talk about getting to know someone in a hurry. I kept thinking “Squeeze the cheeks and don’t fart!”.  If Jill calls us up in a couple days and says that she caught what we had – well folks, THAT was the point of transmission!

So out I went into what I was hoping would be a stretcher of my own.  Too bad for me, cause a wheelchair was all they had waiting.  Great! Another freaking seat! No beds in this damn hospital! They gently lowered Melissa out of the ambulance and wheeled us into the triage area.  I slouched as low as I could go in the wheelchair which put my knees about even with my forehead… Sexy I know, but I needed to get horizontal and the building full of medical experts couldn’t figure that out.  We spent what seemed to be four hours waiting for our turn, but it was probably more like 15 minutes.  Melissa and Jill were still chatting like pledge sisters while Jack and I were quiet.  I wasn’t in the mood to talk and Jack was checking out the nurses PHD’s.  That’s their asses folks, not their diplomas…  PHD means Pretty Heavy Dumper.  It’s finally our turn and we meet a new nurse that we’ll call Bambi.  Why? Just because we had so many nurses attend to us that I couldn’t remember any of their names. So I’ll give them stripper names, cause everybody remembers a stripper’s name. Right? Huh guys? Are ya with me on this?!? Riiiight, so anyways, back to Bambi in the triage.

Keep reading about Bambi and her friends here…

Ok folks, time for the rest of our mini family crisis story! If you’re unaware of what happened or just need a recap, start off by reading Sam’s Big Gift: Part 1 first, then come back here for the rest.

Last time I left off when the paramedics entered the room, so I that’s where I’ll pick it up. Melissa and I are lying in our bed, side by side, both of us in our pyjamas with wet face cloths on our foreheads and a pile of blankets at our feet when they step into the room. The paramedics, we’ll call them Jack and Jill, were immediately smiling at the sight of us and quickly apologized for doing so, explaining that they found us to be too cute not to smile. Assuring them that we weren’t insulted but would appreciate their help as well as their good humor, they took the hint and proceeded to introduce themselves and ask us a series of symptom, medical and family history questions. They then took our vitals while easily chatting with my Dad, who had come to take care of Sam, and Melissa’s sister Myriam, who was going to follow us to the hospital. They explained to us that the big concern is that we were suffering from dehydration and they strongly recommend we see a doctor, preferably a hospital.

I was feeling relatively OK by that point, my last visit to the porcelain throne had been about 90 minutes earlier and, although my body was very weak, my stomach was feeling stronger. So, I pushed for them to take Melissa because she wasn’t doing good, but Jill cut me off like a neutered dog saying that since we both fell ill around the same time, we both had to go. This would ensure we were sick with the same thing, whether it be viral or food poisoning or something more sinister which they only referred to as a “mediacized public health emergency”. That was, of course, bull. We all new they were talking about the MapleLeaf meat virus outbreak thingy that’s been on the news for a couple weeks now: Listeriose.

Keep reading here!

It’s been a pretty eventful last couple of days around our household and it all began last Saturday evening while I was feeding Sam, who seemed a little odd in his behavior. Sparing you the details, suffice to say he just didn’t seem “right”.

We’re on the living room couch, he’s sitting on my lap and I’m gently patting him on the back to get that mid-bottle burp out, when suddenly, Sam projectile vomits in one fell splash, all over my arm, leg, couch and floor. Surprised by the amount of fluid Sam has produced and deemed to share with his Dad, I call over to Melissa for some help with the clean up. And true to form, reliable Mom, comes walking over with one half of a paper towel. Upon arriving at the scene of the spill, Melissa quickly sees that no matter what the absorption capabilities of the paper towel, a half will not do. So as she turns to fetch more, Sam accentuates the point by vomiting again twice in rapid succession all over the place. You know, to hit the spots he missed before.

Melissa and I clean up the mess, Sam and myself all the while making us wonder what caused Sam to have an involuntary reflux of gastro-intestinal acids… umm to puke. So we go through the check list of usual suspects and settle on it maybe being his milk. We thought this because since that morning, Sam had not been finishing his bottles, always leaving an ounce or two, which he’d never done. So I took his unfinished bottle and squeezed a few drops into my mouth to taste it, immediately noticing and odd taste. I then asked Melissa to do the same and she confirmed that it was probably the milk. So we threw out all his made bottles, washed, and made new bottles from another formula box we had bought. Sam was happy and playful the rest of that evening, so we thought nothing more of it. He did what he had to do, and that was that.

Boy were we wrong…