Sick child, worried parents
March 26th, 2007,It was a grueling weekend. On Friday morning our almost-three-year-old daughter said she felt sick and couldn’t go to day care. I thought this was one of her attempts to stay home, but when she vomited, my doubts about her being sick vanished.
What transpired after that was a three-day marathon of tending a very sick child who could not keep down either food or water. She is better now and back at school, thank goodness, but we were worried for a while.
On the first day I was home alone with her and fed her simple foods like crackers when she asked for them and gave her Gatorade and water. On the second day she was much weaker and slept a lot. By the third day, Sunday, she was more alert but still vomiting, and we were limiting her to only tiny amounts of water in an attempt to follow advice that would help her stomach settle. This was difficult to do, since she begged for more food and water.
At a low point on a hellish day, we called the nursing line provided by our health insurance company. They said to call a doctor at our local clinic, which we did. The doctor said to try giving her a popsicle as well as some Benadryl (diphenhydramine), which might help relieve the nausea. (I subsequently found out Benadryl is used to treat motion sickness and morning sickness.) If that didn’t help, he said we should go to the hospital.
The popsicle and Benadryl, along with time, seemed to help, and our daughter fell asleep. Later that afternoon, she seemed better.
We were hugely relieved, to say the least.
The ability to call a health care professional has been extremely useful and anxiety-assuaging to us during many of our daughter’s illnesses. It’s no wonder that those who don’t have access to such services - namely, those without health insurance - are more likely to take a child to an emergency room. We would probably have done that.
Also, I now have an inkling of what it must be like to be unable to feed a child. When she was hungry and thirsty, our daughter could do nothing other than talk about food and drink and where she could get these. Perhaps it’s like that for hungry children around the world, and it must be hell for the parents as well as the child.