The big problem was that neither my son (who was 18) nor I realized how fast he was getting dehydrated. The symptoms started about noon Saturday while he was on a weekend outing. He went to the ER twice (two different hospitals). The first (Saturday afternoon) put him on antibiotics thinking it was beginning appendicitis (that, of course, left no way of tracing the source of what was probably food poisoning). He managed to drive home Sunday and went to the ER again Sunday night. They just told him to rest, drink lots of fluids, etc. He stayed home Monday. When I got home from work Monday I felt his forehead, scrambled for the thermometer and found he had 104* (F). At age 18 he was supposedly out of the care of the pediatrician we'd been using, but I called the pediatrician anyway and he put my son in the hospital immediately, on an IV and on sedation to stop the two-way cramping. I understand the pediatrician really tore into the first ER for giving him antibiotics before taking samples of what was emerging from both ends. He had some choice words for the local ER, too!

What I'm trying to point out here is that the onset of dehydration in this case was insidious and rapid, and neither of us realized what was happening. We both figured since he was keeping part of the fluid down, he was OK, not realizing that most of what stayed down was leaving the other end! My son was pretty out of it by the time I got home Monday. I don't want to think what would have happened if he'd been off by himself! Of course now he reaches for Pedialite the minute one of his kids upchucks!