The diarrhoea started approx 10 days ago, I didn't think much of it, but I should have, as babies tell you everything good and bad through their body fluids and functions.

Renee took Pyper to the doctor to get her checked out, thinking that her bowel motions where a little runny, the doctor took a sample sent it away and was told in 2 days time there was no sign of bugs/virus so on the Thursday of that same week we had her 6 weeks jabs for immunisation she basically came back home and was grizzly. We put her to bed at 8pm thinking she would be up soon, well she didn't wake up until around 3am, and then at 6am she was great, maybe the tranquilisers had knocked her out for a few hours.

The next day as smart as I am proceeded to be Friday, we did the filming for TV3 she was great and then that afternoon the "shit hit the fan" literally. She vomited and then had diarrhoea. Saturday was much of the same and we kept an eye on her and hoped she would get better.

Sunday she decided that her grandmas needed to see how sick she was so she pushed her diarrhoea through her nappies on to her grandmas shirt just before she was about to go home! Hmmm not a good look to be honest! We then got her dressed and basically cleaned up and took her to the after hours medical centre, the doctor told us that because she was alert it would pass and she wasn’t dehydrated either. We went home again.

Monday morning arrived and we were still not convinced that this was going to pass – Pyper filled up 3 nappies in 1 hour. We called the doctor and were asked to bring her in. Once at the doctors she got weighed and found out she had lost weight since her jabs on Thursday 4 days before, and the doctor saw some of the nappies that we brought in and decided that she would try us on Gaviscon Infant in the formula. She also gave us a letter to take to the PAED Registrar at the hospital should nothing get sorted in the next 24 hours, so we went home and tried the Gaviscon. It worked marginally and so by the next morning we were back to the same scenario. I took her to the Accident & Emergency Room and showed them the letter, they said it was 24 hours later (which is wasn't) and that the Registrar wouldn't be available. So once again I saw the House Surgeon who did some basic tests (wasn't dehydrated, was alert and not lethargic) and was deemed not to have any virus or anything. By this time I'm like what the ... this doesn't sound right.

As a good father and sometimes husband I went home told my wife what they said as she couldn't come as she was working. She wasn't happy with the diagnosis at all - basically I was being palmed off for the 3 time in 3 days ... yay!

We had a rebooked appointment with the doctor and she still wasn't happy either she called a few paediatric specialists who weren't there so she called the registrar from the hospital and made an appointment for us to go straight there. We got there and waited whilst the registrar came in and examined via clipboard ... hmm this makes me happy – NOT. He then asked the opinion of another registrar who may have had a little more experience – she came and had one look at her and said lets put her in the isolation ward for the afternoon and see how she goes. They moved her to the isolation ward and put a drip down her nose into her throat – I felt sick why had it taken 5 days to get some attention?

My wife told me to go home and do a couple of things like reorganising her clients for her, and get a couple of things, and then called me to say they were keeping her in. About bloody time is all I can say!! I was at the stage of hitting my head against a wall – swearing and getting angry didn’t help the situation. I tried, and funnily enough I picked up a brochure on anger management in that ward. I realised why they had it there in a children's ward ... hmmm.

Our little girl was fed a drip and then weighed – she had lost some weight and so they decided that she had better stay in overnight – oohhh progress!!! She was still "shitting through the eye of a needle" and so the doctor came around Thursday morning and had a look with - get this - 8 other medical people, he was the only examining her, the rest starred at the TV. Glad I could be of service to be honest!

Then with years of experience and startling brilliance he made the following diagnosis – "Well keep her overnight as it looks like its a virus" I thought I had heard wrong like at the WWII with soldiers being told the war was over.

I stayed with her that night and the nurses started feeding her their formula of which they couldn't tell us what is was as they didn't want to promote it – OMG. She wasn’t vomiting or shooting it out the other end wahoo! We did more feeding and she started to look and feel better. We waited until Friday morning until the specialist could come in again with his team of followers and they did nothing again – I took the mickey out of them and called them Greys Anatomy – strange but no one laughed. Maybe they didn't hear and I had just said it to myself and not out loud. He told us that the virus hadn’t completely gone but she wouldn’t get any worse – gee thanks that’s confidence for you!

Pyper is on the mend now but we did change her formula even though they said it wouldn't be that as she was happy with her old one. They gave us the name of it in the end. They also told us she had gastroenteritis – diarrhoea and vomiting. Which is a bowel infection causing a loose watery bowel motions (diarrhoea). Vomiting is common also and this can last for a few days up to a week.

-Scott

PS don't take anyone's advice until believe you are in good hands don’t settle for second best your child's future and health is in your hands if you don't feel comfortable keep getting advice until you get it right. It took me 5 goes but we finally got there! With daily fathering you call the shots!

Here's some guidelines we picked up from Capital & Coast District Health Board – Child Health Services: October 2005 CHS PAED INP 04
Seek immediate medical attention if your child:

1. Isn’t drinking (if you cant get them to drink in 2 hours) and still have vomiting and diarrhoea
2. Vomiting frequently and doesn’t appear able t keep anything down
3. The vomit is yellow/green
4. Has a lot of diarrhoea 8-10 bowel motions per day and this persists for more then 3 days
5. Has blood in the diarrhoea
6. Is dehydrated i.e. not passing urine, pale, cold hands, and feet or hard to wake up.
7. Has a fever for more then 48 hours

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