More hospital details...

OK, I took that horrible, third world nation type photo of Katherine in the crib down off the home page, in favor of something more, um, New Englandy. Here, now, though, I will regale you with tales of torment and starvation from Winchester Hospital.

So Katherine got sick again last Sunday, and although Kara tried to get her in better shape, but Tuesday, things were not going well. It was another stomach-type bug. Katherine threw up a few times on Sunday, and then had diarreah on Monday. By Tuesday, dehydration was a concern, so after checking with our doctor, she would up in the emergency room at Winchester hospital, where things went badly from the start. First of all, she got there before 10, and it wasn't until 7 or so that she was admitted. It was probably a borderline admission at this point, but they have here there, and they're not going to let her go until they are sure she's OK, and she wasn't drinking or eating sufficiently. Next, the IV folks came in, and mangled her arm. They did a pretty lousy job of finding her vein, and it took a bunch of pokes to get it right. Because she's a little fussbudget, they had to strap her arm to a board to prevent the IV from coming out when she flexed her arm, and then they taped it all up so that she was effectively in a cast. Then, they prescribed the BRAT diet. Now, the BRAT diet seems to be the generally accepted thing for a little kid with diarreah, although there are concerns about it. The problem is, Katherine is a very fussy eater, so she didn't want to eat BRAT type food, except for bananas. And let me tell you, she at a lot of bananas. On Wednesday when I was there, she probably had four or five. She ate so many that when she finally took a solid poop, it came out like a banana. I'm not kidding you, it was yellow and black and although it was flattened a bit by her diapers, if she's let if free fall, it would have probably come out the right shape too. Sorry, if you're a parent, you're used to talking about these things. Poop is a constant source of discussion. Soft poop, watery poop, hard poop, yellow, black and brown poop. You get the point.

Anyway, they wanted to see a combination of things to release her. They were looking for her to drink a certain amount of water, wet diapers, solid bowel movements (BM's, for those in the know), and good looking bloodwork. Well, they mangled her blood draw so bad they had to take it from a finger, and it broke down due to the collection method so that the results were not great. And she just doesn't drink a lot of water. We've tried all kinds of fluids, but she really only likes milk. So we got stuck in a catch-22 - her nature didn't lend itself to behaving in a way that would get her discharged, and they were unwilling to discharge her until she met those goals.

Aich. Anyway, after pleading and pleading, the nurse finally gave her some soy-based Isomil, and she drank that up, pooped, got her bloodwork up, and we got out.

Snow, snow, lots of snow

So the first indication I had that we were going to get more than the forecasted 1 to 3 inches of snow came around 10 AM, when it started snowing heavily, and we already had a couple inches on the ground. They just screwed it up again. We've been hearing snowfall total reductions for the last couple of days. How much snow actually fell? Well, I haven't measured it, but it's at least a foot in Medford. How we got from 2 inches to a foot, well, that's just part of living in New England, I guess.

I got stuck behind a plow line today driving home from work. If you've never experienced this, well, you probably don't want to. It can be either terrifying, or frustrating, depending on the situation. Today, it was really, really, frustrating. I pulled in behind them a few blocks from work on route 2. And wouldn't you know, I had to follow it all the way to Arlington some 15 miles or so, going 15 miles an hour the whole way. The roads had improved considerably by this time, and most of the blow blades were tossing sparks as they hit the pavement. Even more frustrating, for several miles, they did not have a plow in the left lane, and the car two in front of me was too paranoid to pass. Mind you, there wasn't any lane change or anything required, just speed up a little bit. So I got stuck.

For those of you who don't have experience up north, a plow line is where they take somewhere between two and five or six plows, and stagger them across the road so that they form a wedge pushing the snow across the street, usually from the median to the side of the road. This plow line had five plows for a two lane road.

In really bad weather, being near a plow line can be terrifying. They can throw up large volumes of snow and slush without warning, and your car is probably slipping all over the road, and if you try to break through the line and anything goes wrong, you're going to be hit by a huge truck with a large battering ram on it filled with sand. Not pleasant. Sometimes, they aren't spaced evenly, or some plows break off to move in around on ramps and so forth, and you get big gaps in the line. This allows you to play chicken if you really want to pass them. I've done it in bad weather, and I'm not sure I would again. Truly scary.

Anyway, but tomorrow will be beautiful, with a fresh new foot of snow on the ground. It was getting pretty grubby up here. There is still snow cover over everything in Medford, but it was all dirty and grimy with age. We've had snow on the ground now since Christmas, and it shows no signs of stopping, with cold to frigid temperatures forecast, and more snow early next week. It's shaping up to be a truly great winter.

OK, she's better now

She was discharged yesterday in the late afternoon. I would have written earlier, but honestly, the whole thing is a blur. We had a really bad experience on two levels. First, she was sick, and that's no fun at all. Second, the hospital was not a great experience, and that made the whole thing worse. I mean, look at that picture on the home page. That was what it was like for three and a half days. My boss remarked that it looked like some kind of third world photo of a childrens ward in a primitive hospital. Of course, the care was a bit better than that, but it was still a form of torture that I would not recommend.

So now we are paranoid. No play groups. No sick visitors. Wash the hands all the time. Get through the winter, because it's been pretty damn long so far.

Katherine is sick again

Really sick. She relapsed into the stomach thing on Sunday. One bout of vomit, then lots of squishy stuff coming out the other end. We did better this time, and managed to get her to drink more fluids, but after two days of this, it caught up to her - there was just more coming out than going in. So Kara took her to the ER this morning, and this afternoon I found out she was admitted for an overnight. This is bad, very bad. I mean, it's not a critical situation or anything. She's got an IV, and she'll get lots of fluids and stuff, but Kara is spending the night there, and you just never know. So here I am in Kansas City, a thousand plus miles away, and I have to wait until the morning to fly back to be with them, and I won't get in until 1 or 2 in the afternoon. Very, very frustrating.