A new word

A lot of things have been going on during this last week, and as such this almost got over looked. This week while out here in NY, Kylie has picked up a new word, “Nana“. This has become the word that she uses to refer to my Mother, her Grand Mother. Before this week she did not use this word, and since we got out here she has been using it to refer to her Grand Mother. She will say “Nana” and look right at my Mom, and when she holds Kylie, Kylie will repeatedly say “Nana” in a very excited tone and bounce in her Grand Mother’s arms. We are very happy that Kylie has chosen now to start using this word.

A few hours in the ER

Kylie has been sick the past few days; she has vomited twice (something she has never done before) and has had a lot of diarrhea, which is also not common for her; and with the upcoming return trip to MI, Tiffany was worried about her being dehydrated. So I finally agreed that we should go ahead and go to the ER. So we went up to Albany Medical Center’s ER last night, and let me say that I was not very impressed. They got us into triage rather quickly and then over to the pediatric unit in short order, which was nice, but that is pretty much where the good stuff ended and my patience ran out.

We were in the pediatric waiting room for about five minutes when Kylie needed to have her diaper changed again. It was at this point that Tiffany realized that for some reason we did not have any wipes in the diaper bag. So I went to the pediatric nurse’s station to ask for a few, explaining that Kylie had soiled her diaper and we did not have any. At this point the nurse stated that they did not have any as they used washcloths and that she would gladly bring me some into the waiting area. So I returned to the waiting area and informed Tiffany and so we waited, for five minutes. Thankfully this whole time Kylie was an angel and did not fuss as she lay on a table waiting to be changed. I then decided that enough was enough and went and found a bathroom and returned with some damp paper towels so we could clean Kylie up and change her. To make a long story shorter thirty five minutes, two soiled diapers and two trips to a bathroom to get damp paper towels later we were called into the pediatric unit…the nurse never brought us any washcloths.

They did some basic checks on Kylie and told me what I already knew; Kylie had a stomach bug and was moderately dehydrated. After she drank a bottle of a pedialyte and nursed, I went and told the nurse we wanted to be discharged. She tried to give me some story about needing to stay because Kylie was on the edge of needing an IV for dehydration and what not, and that’s when I told her that we weren’t going to let them give Kylie an IV and that they had not informed me of anything I didn’t already know before I got there and we were ready to leave, considering they had told us that they would have been happy if Kylie was able to drink three ounces of the pedialyte, and she had already drank six ounces and nursed. So the nurse consented to get the resident on duty to check her and let us go.

Now enters the head resident, who is different from the original attending who check out Kylie to begin with. He tells us that Kylie was no where near needing an IV and doesn’t know why the attending and this nurse had told us that. Stated that Kylie was only slightly dehydrated and no where near the level of dehydration that would require an IV, and that furthermore all of her responses seemed normal for a child that was clearly tired. Told us just to make sure she is drinking some fluids and that the bug would work its way out of her system.

So basically it was a waste of a few hours to go to the ER, but with the upcoming 600 mile trip, we decided it was better to be safe than sorry. So far today though, she is doing much better and we are hoping that it will last through tomorrow’s trip home.