Ruby's Hospital Visit

As many of you probably saw via Instagram, Ruby got quite the horrible stomach virus a few weeks ago and wound up in the hospital.  She woke up in the middle of the night two days prior to our scheduled flight to Minneapolis and was sick, sick, sick.  There were many trips to the bathroom all day long, but she actually seemed in fairly good spirits.  However, after another night of waking up sick I decided I better call the pediatrician.  He did some blood work and sent us home saying he'd call later with results.  We'd been home less than an hour when I got a call that we needed to go right in to the hospital for fluids.  Cue panic.  I quickly dropped Ada off at a friend's house (thank God for good friends in Waco!) and took Ruby to the hospital.  They hooked her up with an IV, popsicle and movies.

Very quickly she got her appetite back, but I began to realize that they were going to keep her overnight.

Cue more panic....we were supposed to be getting on an airplane the next day...I was supposed to be doing laundry and packing all day.  I couldn't even wrap my head around the logistics of two of us going and two of us staying, so I just let it go and prayed for a quick recovery and discharge!

Steve picked Ada up after work and then came to the hospital to switch out with me.  I put Ada to bed and frantically "packed" (aka: dumped the laundry basket of clothes into a suitcase and crossed my fingers there were at least a couple pairs of underwear for everyone!).  I put all of Ada's and Steve's things in one suitcase and Ruby's and my things in another just in case but I still wasn't sure how that would have worked.  We were flying on Spirit, and with all of their crazy rules, Ruby and I were the only ones allowed to check a bag.  Plus, I bought the girls tickets and Steve bought his later so I'm not sure they would have let him take Ada without me anyway.  Not to mention figuring out how to get everyone to and from the airport/park cars, etc.

Another good friend (praise the Lord) came to stay with Ada so I could go back to the hospital and send Steve back home.  Ruby was not happy about having to stay overnight, but luckily fell asleep pretty smoothly due to being exhausted and sleep through all of the poking and prodding every hour all night long!  All in all she really did pretty great, the only thing she had a major fit about was taking tylenol. She is the worst about taking medicine.  The worst.

Our doctors knew of our travel plans and were so great to come see Ruby right away Wednesday morning.  The blood work (from 4am) looked great so they gave us the okay to not only go home, but put her on an airplane.  We were told her electrolyte levels were back to normal.  Apparently the blood work from the pediatrician's office had extremely low levels.  The doctors told us normal levels are above 20 and if they fall to 16-17 they admit patients for fluids.  Ruby had been at 12.  I'm thankful they didn't tell me this until she was back to normal range!

We ran home around 10am, finished packing, and left for the airport by noon.  It was as crazy as it sounds, and even as we drove to Dallas, neither Steve and I were sure we were going to actually make our flight!  We had to be sure Ruby was taking a sip of water every 5 minutes, which meant 25 times just on our drive from Waco to Dallas I said "drink".  As you can imagine, Ruby was thrilled!  I never imagined pushing my almost 7 year old in a stroller, but after losing 2 pounds it was necessary to get through DFW and we made it to our gate with plenty of time.
I told Ruby she could have whatever she wanted to drink; juice, sprite, gatorade, pedialyte.   She could not believe I was going to let her have gatorade.  I guess she's asked for it before and I've always said it's not a very healthy drink, so of course that's what she asked for.  After one tiny sip she decided she didn't really like gatorade-ha!

Ruby did great keeping hydrated over the next couple days and was back to her healthy self quite quickly.  Not sure what or where she got the bug but it sure hit her hard.  Ruby is rarely sick, but when she is sick, she's sick.  In hindsight, I should have brought her in the day before when she couldn't keep anything in her- bad mom!