My son has been vomiting and had diarrhea for a week now. Naturally, I’ve been in constant communication with his pediatrician, who I’m sure now officially thinks I’m the most neurotic Jewish mother ever.
Anyhow, his symptoms have essentially remained the same. Until last night, when he actually coughed so much that he woke himself up at 4am to vomit.
Needless to say I was concerned. His sickness has been going on for over a week now, and if we count the previous colds that he has had its actually been a total of three weeks.
So I put another call into the pediatrician’s on call line. She told me to bring my son to the Emergency Room. So my parents, myself and my son hit the road and headed to the hospital.
We were seen almost immediately by a resident doctor. He asked me what was happening with my son and I relayed the list of symptoms. I also brought a sample of the diarrhea, which my pediatrician suggested that I do.
The resident looked at the sample and snidely told me
“Ma’am that’s not diarrhea. Diarrhea is pure water”
I was speechless. I didn’t want to get into a semantics argument with this doctor about what was or was not diarrhea.
Anyway, after he asked me a million questions he concluded that there was absolutely nothing wrong with my son.
“Okay, so why is he waking up in the middle of the night to vomit?” I asked him.
“I’m sorry ma’am you’ll have to ask your pediatrician about that.”
I tried asking him more questions, but his response was the same to each question I asked. So we left with no new information.
So I returned home only to further harass my son’s pediatrician’s office for answers. Hopefully they will provide some soon. There is only so much frustration I can take before I explode.