1st ER Visit

I think everyone realizes that once you become a parent that there will be some sort of trip to the ER during your child's lifetime.  Hopefully it's something like a sprained ankle incurred at sports practice or as a toddler with the ever too familiar stiches on the split chin from a fall.  As a heart parent, a trip to the ER take on a completely different perspective. 

Last night Brian and I had to take Olivia in for her first trip to the ER and none of us were happy about making the trip down to Hope.  It started after her 6PM bottle, she just cried and cried.  No biggie, we tried Mylicon, walking around with her, the bouncer, finally some tylenol, found out she likes going up and down stairs, the bouncer some more and she passed out.  The rest was only momentary because she woke up 30 minutes later screaming like a banshee.  Again, more bouncing, walking, and it just continued and now she was arching and thrashing around so I knew it was stomach related for sure. She was inconsolable so I made the call to the PSHU to talk with the cardiac fellow on call.  I ran through the list of meds, the changes from last week's clinic and what I was visibly observing.  Olivia would have a crying fit for 10-15 minutes and then be calm for equally as long before the fit started up again.

"I'm concerned" said the cardiac fellow, "Please bring her in to be examined".  Ugh...I dreaded it, his thought was maybe she had a bowel obstruction and that was the cause of her pain, but I know that if she had an obstruction her tummy would have looked red and it wasn't and we most likely would have been seeing vomiting and a fever which we didn't have either.  So off we went at 9 to Hope just to be safe.  I'll spare all the nitty gritty but bottom line is the tummy med that she's on again - Reglan- is working a little too well.  It's designed to help these little ones digest their food faster by increasing stomach contractions.  Well in Olivia's case it looks like it made her tummy over-contract to where she was cramping.  While they do not want us to discontinue its use altogether, they did lower the dose and so far so good today. 

We walked back in the house around 12:45 and everyone passed out from exhaustion.  Last update I had from Nonna, my girl was all smiles and really enjoying her naps today.  The little stinker!