My poor sick munchkin...

This was not a great weekend at the Ng house. Abby's cold got a bit worse on Friday; she was so snotty that she sounded a little bit like Darth Vader. Then, just as her cold seemed to be clearing up a little bit on Sunday, the next round of sickness began...

Abby was a bit fussy on Sunday morning. She took a nap during church, but when she got home, she just wasn't happy. Usually a car ride will calm her down if she's really fussy, so we decided to run over to Target to pick up a few things that we needed for the week. Sure enough, Abby fell asleep on the car ride over, so we put her carrier onto her stroller and were wheeling her around Target while we did some shopping. Suddenly, Abby started coughing and then began projectile vomiting. We pulled her out of her stroller and sat her down on a blanket on the floor. (Yes, our quick thinking saved some poor worker at Target from having to clean up Abby's sick.) It was such an awful feeling of helplessness, watching Abby vomit and not be able to help her. As soon as she stopped, we began peeling off her clothes and cleaning her up. At this point, we noticed a red rash covering most of her body. We called our doctor's office, and Carey spoke with one of the weekend urgent care doctors while we packed Abby up and got into the car. After asking about Abby's symptoms, the doctor told us to take her to their urgent care office or to the emergency room. At this point, we were only a few minutes from the ER, so we went to Huntington Hospital and were seen pretty quickly by a pediatric ER doctor. Dr. Barnaby did a thorough check of Abby, from her temperature to her chest, ears, and stomach, but wasn't able to find anything wrong, other than a bit of a runny nose, which she'd had since last Tuesday. The rash was also gone by this point. Dr. Barnaby said that, in all likelihood, the runny nose from her cold probably caused her to cough, which then likely triggered her gag reflex and cause the vomiting. The rash was probably just a hive-like reaction to the trauma her body was under during the vomiting. So, he said to keep an eye on her and make she that she stayed hydrated, but he couldn't find anything wrong with her. (In fact, by the time we were seen by the doctor, Abby was smiling, cooing, and chewing on her toes, apparently no worse for the wear...)

Unfortunately, the weekend got worse. After we got home, Abby stared having pretty bad diarrhea. It got to the point where we were changing her diapers every hour or so, if not sooner. I stayed home from work yesterday and took her to our pediatrician. Dr. Cohen looked her over and said that she probably had a stomach virus that moved down into her intestines. The most important thing is that we keep her hydrated and give her foods to bind her up (rice, bananas, and apples). Unfortunately, as of this morning, there was no change since yesterday. We've actually taken to putting two diapers on Abby (a size 3 and a size 4) to prevent the leaks that were happening. (I had to change Abby's sheets three times yesterday and she went through 5 outfits plus a pair a jammies yesterday. I did so much laundry...)

The weird part is that, if you were to look at Abby, she seems fine. When I was home with her yesterday, she was playing, laughing, eating, and sleeping just like she always does. I suppose that this is a good thing, because the last time she was really sick (end of January), she was very lethargic and unresponsive. Yesterday and today, she was smiling and giggling and playing with her toys. She hasn't run a fever during this illness, and her cold is actually starting to clear up. (Yesterday was the first day that she didn't wake up with a crusty nose...) So, Carey is going back to the doctor's office today to have them look at Abby again, just to make sure she's okay. Please keep our little angel in your thoughts and prayers. I don't know what is causing her little system to be so mixed up, but I pray that it will go away very soon!!