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Father [0:01]:
As parents you’re supposed to protect your kids and provide everything you can.
Mother [0:07]:
A few months ago, our two-year-old daughter had gotten what we thought was just a run-of-the-mill stomach virus and was vomiting and had diarrhoea. She seemed a little better in the morning and then all of a sudden, she just became rapidly worse. I mean it was just constant vomiting, constant diarrhoea. And so, we went to the emergency room and by the time we got there she was severely dehydrated.
Father [0:30]:
They were really having a hard time putting an IV in her, so they had to stick her like over 10 times.
Mother [0:37]:
She was crying and there were no tears because she was so dehydrated. They tried in her forehead, both of her hands, her feet, her arms, her legs. She got to the point where when she would see someone coming at her with a needle she would just take her little blanket and cover up her head.
Father [0:53]:
It was one of the toughest things I’ve ever had to watch.
Mother [0:56]:
There was the vascular specialist team that they were talking about calling in to start an IV. They even had said that they may have to drill a hole into her bone marrow, then one of the nurses just said, you know, let me give it a shot and was able to get an IV started.
Doctor [1:12]:
Rotavirus is so common that almost no one makes it to the age of 5 without having had this infection. But in the paediatric emergency room we see so many children who end up hospitalised.
Father [1:25]:
She started to get better; we could tell a difference right away. But they said they were gonna have to watch her for quite a while.
Mother [1:33]:
My husband was staying at the hospital with our daughter and then they came in and said that her rotavirus test had come back positive.
Doctor [1:41]:
Rotavirus is the number one cause of diarrhoea in infants and children.
Mother [1:46]:
Our doctor’s office didn’t have the rotavirus vaccine and he said you know just run over to the county health department and I thought, oh rotavirus, no big deal, my other kids have had that.
Doctor [1:58]:
You need to get your child vaccinated against rotavirus because it is a serious cause of diarrhoea. The one that’s most likely to have your child end up hospitalised.
Mother [2:08]:
It was horrible to watch her suffer like that and then later to find out that I could’ve prevented in.
Father [2:15]:
My wife and I were together to take care of her and I thought oh this is great, everything’s going to be fine.
Mother [2:20]:
I called to check on our youngest son who’d also been sick and our girlfriend who had been babysitting said you know I think you should take him in to be looked at.
Doctor [2:28]:
Its highly contagious. I often hear of families who have more than one child with this at the same time.
Mother [2:35]:
And they transferred him by ambulance to the same children’s hospital. And he stayed for three days and she stayed for four days.
Father [2:42]:
But I still wasn’t able to see him yet. I couldn’t leave my daughter to go see my son.
Mother [2:48]:
The first night that he was in the hospital we went through 22 diapers in a 14-hour period.
Doctor [2:54]:
You have trouble keeping up with it, and then just as the child is having diarrhoea they’re also having vomiting.
Mother [3:02]:
And so, it was like 5 minutes in the hall, trading places for a little while. Wait ‘till they were asleep, meet in the hall again, trade places.
Father [3:09]:
It never crossed my mind that both of my kids would be that sick at the same time.
Mother [3:13]:
There was laundry. Probably 25 loads of laundry you know all contaminated.
Doctor [3:18]:
People try to prevent rotavirus through good handwashing, by cleaning surfaces. And those are important. But the best protection for children is through vaccination.
Mother [3:29]:
My actions caused my kids to suffer. And that’s kind of a hard thing to swallow.
Doctor [3:35]:
Check with your provider to see if immunisation is right for your family.
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