long day's journey into night. and day. and night...

dylan vomited again on monday after lunch. when her stomach wouldn't settle after two hours of near-constant vomiting, we took her to the hospital. this episode had the same patterns of the previous seven bouts of incessant vomiting, but this time she has a temperature and diarrhea.

they gave dylan an IV to rehydrate her and took more x-rays, which again showed that everything appeared ok. after several hours, she calmed down and began to smile and talk. i nursed her, she seemed ok, and they were preparing to send us home when she got sick again and instead they sent us in an ambulance to children's hospital in pittsburgh. (the local hospital we were at no longer admits children, and they wanted her to see specialists.)

we got there at 11:30 pm and were ushered into their ER, where they took still more x-rays, and a few hours later she was admitted into a room. i nursed her and prepared to put her to bed when she got sick again. around 3:30 am we all tried to sleep a few hours, but one can only sleep so well in hospital chairs holding an infant attached to an IV.

the next day we saw allergists and other doctors and nurses. they are certain her vomiting was not caused by allergies because the types of food are so varied and they only sometimes triggered sickness. while it is good to know what is not making her sick (they also ruled out stress or anything i'm eating), we still have no idea what is wrong.

we need to see a doctor who specialized in gastrointestinal medicine, but inexplicably, they did not get us a consult, even though i started requesting one yesterday morning and several doctors and nurses promised to set it up. everyone that we dealt with at the hospital was really great--the nurses, the ER doctors and techs, the night doctor, the pediatrician, the allergists--everyone except the young day doctor who unfortunately was the one who held all the cards for dylan's care. she was most concerned about dylan's fever and was not at all concerned about what we were--getting to bottom of what caused the past six weeks of violent, inexplicable vomiting.

dylan's fever had broken, she was hydrated, but they wanted to keep us for another sleepless night so we could get a GI consult sometime today--but they couldn't promise when.

we were all exhausted. dylan had barely slept, we were wearing the same clothes that dylan had gotten sick on the night before, i still was wearing my contact lenses, and the idea of spending another whole day in that room waiting for a conversation with the GI doctors that they would not set up ahead of time didn't seem wise, when our little girl needed rest most of all.

so reluctantly and without answers, we left the hosptial last night at 10:30 pm, a day an a half after dylan started getting sick. we drove the hour and half back home and were all in bed by midnight. she got up twice to nurse, but otherwise we all slept until eleven this morning, and dylan (and jim) are having a nice long nap now.

we are thankful that she is sleeping and recovering. we are thankful to be home and showered. we are thankful for everyone who prayed for dylan and us. please continue to keep us in your prayers. we want our little girl to be healthy!