Jillian's Journal

Daddy stays home this morning to take care of me because I’m sick and Mommy has her own Doctor’s appointment this morning. I’m so weak and limp today that Mommy and Daddy are starting to worry about me getting dehydrated. Daddy gives me a pancake and I drink about 6 oz. of ‘special drink’. Shortly afterward, and while Daddy’s holding me talking on the phone to the nurse, I throw up all over him and the floor. The nurse says it sounds like I have rotavirus and it just has to run it’s course, about 7 to 10 days! She suggests to keep giving me small amounts of ‘special drink’ frequently. I do nothing but lay in Mommy’s arms all day today. All I want to do is sleep. I’ve never been so weak in my life. Around 9PM, Mommy and Daddy start to worry that I’m becoming severely dehydrated and are concerned about me making it through the night so they call my Doctor. My Doctor tells Daddy to take me to Children’s Medical Center hospital in downtown Dallas. Once we got to the hospital, the nice Doctor checked me out and suggested we try to orally hydrate me first to avoid poking me with an IV. This option almost worked but after an hour, I threw up. So next thing I know, Mommy lays me on a strange table and a man with an unusual accent, and another nurse start manipulating my hand. They wrapped and taped a tiny pillow under my hand and wrist. I was so tired, weak and confused I just watched them as they prepared to poke a needle into the top of my hand. Mommy and Daddy made me turn my head and look at them instead of the man poking my hand. It hurt, but I didn’t cry at all. When I turned around to look, I noticed I was attached by tubing to what looked to me like a coat rack on wheels. Except instead of a coat hanging from the hooks at the top, it was a bag of clear liquid that was attached by tubing to the top of my hand. How strange! Mommy and Daddy rolled me out of the room and went into the waiting room to wait for liquid to go into my body. This took about 45 minutes or so. I was still very tired but I could tell this was helping. Mommy and Daddy even seemed a little relieved. Then they took the needle out of my hand and unwrapped my hand and they let us go home. I fell asleep on the way home. We got home around 1PM. What a night!