Thanksgiving 2011

Have I ever mentioned how much I LOVE Thanksgiving?  It's in my top 3 of holidays - Independence Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas all vie for first place.  The last couple of years I've hosted Thanksgiving at my house always with an open door invitation to all of our family.  Some years only my Dad has come and a few years ago, we had a huge crowd.  This year my Mom, Dad, Step-Dad and Emma's grandfather (her Dad's Dad) were supposed to come.  My Mom ended up sick and so it was the four of us, my Dad and Emma's grandfather. But it was wonderful nonetheless.  We had a ton of food and just enjoyed each others company.

Emma was sick a few days prior to Thanksgiving, violently throwing up every 10 minutes or so until there was literally nothing left to come up.  She was beginning to become dehydrated from not even being able to take a sip of ginger ale before she would throw up again.  So at 8pm I headed to the ER with her at the recommendation of the nurse-on-call at her pediatrician's office.  I've had some bad experiences at our local hospital, but I must say I was pleasantly surprised at the wait time, the nurses and the doctor we dealt with.  I was a little irked that a family with 2 young kids did go back before we did after getting there after us when they were happily playing in the waiting room and Emma had already thrown up 3 times since we had gotten there, but our turn did come....

They ruled out appendicitis and were pretty confident we were dealing with just a nasty stomach bug.  The doctor wanted to rehydrate her before we left and gave us some pedialyte to try.  Since it had been about 30 minutes since she last vomited (the longest she had gone all day), we gave her a teaspoon and a half of pedialyte to which she swallowed and then while I turned my back to set the bottle down on the counter she instantly began throwing up which instantly set of the alarms she was connected too (I believe her heart rate would surge and then her blood pressure would be off).  So the lovely nurse gave her zofran aka miracle drug. Hannah uses this to help her during her vomiting episodes and it instantly stops the vomiting and just like with Hannah, Em instantly got relief.  Over the next hour we got her to drink the rest of the pedialyte and then waited forever to be discharged.  She spent most of the next day resting and I washed sheets, blankets, towels and my hands.  By 2:30 Wednesday she was back to herself with the occasional complaint that she was nauseous.

Fast forward to Thanksgiving day.  We had a wonderful spread, turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, stuffing, rolls, deviled eggs, pumpkin pie, yellow cake, all kinds of yummy stuff!  Hannah didn't eat much and we assumed it was because she consumed her fair share of chips right before dinner.  Around 5:30 she climbed up on Daddy's lap in complete misery.  I tried giving her zofran but around 6pm her night of vomiting began.  She got so exhausted she wouldn't even sit up to throw up, I had to literally hold her body up over our "puke bucket" so she wouldn't choke.  I didn't try to give her any liquids until she had slowed down on the vomiting and knowing that Emma's vomiting lasted about 4 hours, I waited it out.  Running upstairs every 15 minutes to comfort and soothe her and at times hold her up, this went on until 10:30 that night.  I slept on the floor of her room afraid she would choke.  But then around 3am I woke up sick.... There was no way I could handle throwing up every 15 minutes, but thankfully I only got sick twice.  But the nausea was ruthless. I laid on the couch all day in misery - no black friday shopping for this momma!  I ended up with a migraine and anyone who suffers from migraines know that it comes with its own bout of nausea!  I took an imitrex, a phenegan and slept until 1030 the next morning!  Five pounds light and about 85% better, I'm hoping to accomplish very little today, put up our tree, clean up the mess that was made while I would out of commission yesterday and maybe take the kids to see Arthur Christmas later this afternoon!

So that was our Thanksgiving this year!  I'm thankful we got to enjoy most of the day healthy, long enough for me to cook dinner and enjoy it with some family!  I didn't have anything I needed to get on black friday, so I wasn't too bummed I didn't get to out.  My Dad and I had plans just to go out and shop later in the day, but I guess this virus had other plans for me.  I'm actually quite excited to see what deals I can get on cyber Monday this year!

So, how was your Thanksgiving?