Rotavirus

Last Thursday evening Eliljah began vomiting…and it hasn’t stopped since. On Saturday after a sample of his stool (diarrhea) was examined, he was diagnosed with “Rotavirus,”- a familiar word, but something I had yet to understand.



Now that I do, I know that if the Rotavirus were a person, I would immediately knee it in the stomach, slap it in the face, and spit at its feet.



Apparently Rotavirus infections are responsible for approximately 3 million cases of diarrhea and 55,000 hospitalizations for diarrhea and dehydration in children under 5 years old each year in the United States. In developing countries, the Rotavirus causes over half a million deaths worldwide every year due to dehydration caused by diarrhea (http://kidshealth.org/parent/infections/stomach/rotavirus.html).


In Honduras, the Rotavirus is epidemic, and easily passed as germs stay on objects touched by infectious children for two days.


On Thursday Elijah began vomiting, on Friday he was diagnosed, but on Saturday, though he was thin and weak, he seemed to show signs of improvement. He walked around and showed interest in playing. However, despite his apparent improvement, he began to refuse to drink liquids. By the doctor’s orders, Rey and I forced Pedialite into his mouth with a syringe every 10 minutes. When night fell and Elijah went to bed for the evening, Rey and I were less vigilant with the forced rehydration therapy. We figured he needed his sleep and did not want to wake him every ten minutes. . In retrospect, this proved a dangerous mistake.



The next morning when we took Elijah to the doctor for his daily injection of medicine, his condition suddenly deteriorated. His eyes seemed to shrink into this face, his lips were chapped, and when I asked the doctor if we should take him to the hospital to get rehydrated he said “yes.”


Our doctor in Honduras goes above and beyond many doctors in the States. We didn’t know where the closest hospital was (now that we live in Linda Miller) and it’s difficult to navigate Teguc since many of the streets are unnamed. Our doctor led us to the hospital in his car, to a pediatrician he knew and called ahead of time, asking him to come to work on a Sunday just for Elijah.


In the car Elijah’s condition worsened and I was beside myself with fear for his life. His eyes could not focus and he was fading in and out of consciousness. He was as limp as a doll and his heartbeat so faint that at one point I couldn’t feel it.

“Elijah, Elijah!” stay with me! My reaction to Elijah’s condition was practically giving Rey a heart attack, who drove like a mad man following the doctor through the winding streets of Tegucigalpa.


When we finally reached the hospital the pediatrician met us at the door. Things that Elijah normally would fight over (like taking his temperature) were easy because he was so listless. He had lost 4 pounds in three days and his face was so small, all eyes.


Putting the IV in Elijah was not as difficult as I expected because Elijah was so weak. After 4 hours of rehydration he began to look better: his eyes were no longer shrunken into his face and some color returned to his cheeks. The doctor said that he was “moderately dehydrated,” and the danger was to see if he would keep urinating and his kidneys functioning properly.


Four days later I am relieved to say that Elijah is 100% better. He is eating, drinking, (and urinating) normally again, and playing with all of rascaliness we once knew. He still has weight to put on to get back to normal, and is still at a lower energy level than normal (which is about what I can handle!). But he is healed, thank you God.


I feel so blessed that we have the means to take Elijah to a doctor, and the hospital, and the huge support we received from everyone here. Thank you for your prayers.