{Another trip to Children's Hospital}

Saturday morning Nathan and I had planned to get out and complete all of our Christmas shopping. Nate's mom had agreed to keep Mason for the morning/afternoon. We woke up on Saturday and Mason was great, a little croupy, but great. He was playful and silly and eager to go to Nana and Papas. Nathan took Mason to get donuts while I finished getting ready. Then we took him to Nate's mom and dad's. Still good. 
We went to Toys R Us first. I think we got there at 9:45. We had just enough time to get Mason's "Santa" gift before we got a call that he had thrown up pretty bad.  That was around 10:30. He was in the bathtub and saying that he was feeling better. They said he acted fine and that it might have been just a one time thing. He had some drainage, so we all started praying it was just that.    We headed back that way. I couldn't just hear that he was "okay", I had to see him. Hug him and kiss him. When we got there he was playing and acted fine. He ate and entire gatorade-type popsicle. We hung out for another hour or so and decided to take Mason home to get a nap. On our way to the car Mason got sick again. Luckily we were outside.   We went home and he played for a little bit and then Nate got him to lay down for a few. He slept for about 30-45 minutes and then woke up. I could see it in his face he was about to get sick again. And he did. And it was a lot. And it was our deciding factor to take him straight to Children's. He wasn't taking in enough for the amount that was coming out. We were scared of dehydration and what happened last year. Read about that here.
We checked into the ER at 3:45 and were introduced to the not so glamorous side of Children's. The last time we were there it was by ambulance, so our care was a little nicer. We sat in a filthy waiting room with 5-10 people with masks on. It was obvious it's flu season! Mason wanted to get up and play on the toys but we wouldn't let him. I felt bad, but I didn't want him to get any sicker. He had a full lesson of germs during that wait! 
After an hour and half or so later they finally called us back. They took Mason's vitals and then put us in a room. Mason threw up again right when we got in there. That was 5:30. We told the nurse and she laid a towel over it said she would notify housekeeping. We sat in this room for what seemed like forever. The housekeeper finally came about an hour and a half later to clean up the mess on the floor. And at 7:30 we finally saw the doctor. She checked him over and he wasn't dehydrated at that point. She ordered him a Zofran tablet and wanted to give it 30 minutes to set in. The nurse brought it in and then took us to an "internal waiting room". Again, filty, lots of really really sick people. I kept Mason in my lap and tried to cover his mouth as best I could. At this point I was so ready to get out of there! Mason drank apple juice and gatorade and held them down. About an hour later the doctor checked him and he was doing great. She got our discharge papers ready and we went to a room for one last round of vitals. They prescribed him Zofran.

We left the hospital and headed to get his prescription and a few other essentials. We let Mason pick out a toy because he had been so well behaved at the hospital. Throughout the whole sick day he was so sweet and patient and kind.    We finally got home and Nate's parents met us there with food. Nathan and I hadn't eaten all day and were starving. But of course at that point we were just exhausted and too tired to eat. We had a few bites and that was it.    Mason was so tired. It was around 11:30pm and he was upset that he couldn't have any milk. He fell asleep in my lap watching Toy Story around 11:45.    We took it easy on Sunday. Mason was great and starving! That boy asked for everything we had in the house, plus some. He did great all day! Nate took off Monday to be with him. We wanted to give him another day to rest. I took him to school on Tuesday, but picked him up early. We wanted to ease back into it!    He's been great ever since. Praise the Lord!!!