Thursday, May 31, 2007

How many sips does it take to get to the bottom of a 32-ounce bottle of blue Gatorade? 

For those of you following the drama, our trip to the doctor today revealed that Emily has gastroenteritis, a.k.a. the stomach flu. It's a virus, so medicine won't help, but supposedly it'll work its way out on its own. Really the only worry is avoiding dehydration.

On the way to the doctor, Emily threw up in the car (her sixth bout), but luckily I'd had the forethought to put a towel down under her car seat. However, I did forget to bring along a change of clothes for her, so she had to stay damp.

The doctor wrote us a perscription for Phenergan which helps curb vomiting, but he cautioned us not to use it unless we really needed to, since it makes people sleepy and it's been known to cause babies to stop breathing. Instead, he recommended that we simply stick to Gatorade and then the BRAT diet. Here's the fun part: Because of Emily's vomiting, she probably won't keep anything down, so he said I should give her two teaspoonfuls of Gatorade at 10-minute intervals.

I don't know if you can conceptualize the size of two teaspoonfuls of liquid, but it's pretty dang small. To avoid making it seem like I was trying to give her medicine, I poured the teaspoons into a cup for Emily. She drank the meager portion eagerly and said, "This is so good! May I have some more?" It was tough explaining to her that she had to wait 10 minutes before her next sip. It was tougher still listening to her ask "Is it 10 minutes yet?" every 2 minutes or so for the next hour. I was thrilled when we graduated to saltines.

By this evening, Emily was acting like everything was fine. She went outside to swing and help me water the plants. She hasn't had any more epsidodes of vomiting since we visited Misty at work on the way home from the doctor's office. Misty picked Emily up for a hug, and almost immediately Emily threw up on her. At least she was wearing scrubs.