Monday, April 30, 2012

Honest to God, x is always an unknown

Dearest Sloane,

We've had such a time with your health lately that it reminds me how thankful I am for you and your general good health.   You started running a low grade fever last Monday, and had no appetite at all.  We thought it was just that nasty teething (you got another one-- I thought you already had all 20!).  But Wednesday it got up to 101.3 and I got concerned so I called your doctor's office.  The nurse assured me that there were a lot of bugs going around.  She warned me if you got worse or you started to vomit to bring you in. 

At 3am Thursday you woke me up with your cries and you sounded different.  I picked you up and you were burning up...103.9 and you had vomitted all over your bed.   Thank God aunt Tay is a nurse and Grammy works nights.  I called her and she helped me through it, the three of us women decided (with no objection from your dad) that we had to take you in to the ER.  I secretly (not so secretly now) fear being one of those parents...you know the ones who take their kid in to the ER for every little sniffle.  But something told me this wasn't a virus.  

And there was this nagging thing...When I was just a girl my mom's cousin lost their 20 month old toddler to meningitis.  They thought she just had the flu.  So even if I was going to turn out to be wrong I put you into your carseat at 2:45 am and met grammy at the ER.  I told your daddy to sleep for now and I would text him if we needed him since both of us were supposed to work the next day.  

It was so hard to see you in that hospital bed.  You looked tiny.   


This adventure hasn't been nearly this fun
We had wonderful nurses, radiology technician and doctor.  You were a tough little girl but you cried each time someone touched you (which there was a lot of).  Everytime you were touched you would look at me and sign "please" and say "bye bye" to the nurse or doctor.  It was so pitifully cute and heartbreaking.   I am so glad Dudley the monkey was there, he wore your hospital bracelet, so they scanned him each time they came to do something for you or give you a med.  After they would scan him you would proudly say "beep beep". 

The doctor ordered a throat culture (negative) a chest xray (indicating bronchitis) and a straight catheter urine collection (thank God for pediatric nurses) which was positive for a UTI.  The fever, malaise, and lack of appetite suddenly made sense.  You had an infection all along.   We got to go home at 5 am with an antibiotic.  We went to grammy's to camp out so that you could have your grammy and your personal RN--aunt Tay.  You area  lucky little lady.   

The next day you woke up with 102.9 and were shivering like mad.  I called your pediatrician to follow up and they wanted to see you right away.  You were not excited to return to a doctor's office.  You screamed through the check and especially the shot of antibiotics.

They asked me to bring you in again the next day.  You got another antibiotic shot and an appointment for a kidney sonogram and blood panel.   


They gave you a balloon because they felt so sorry for you


We are still working through this infection.  We are watching you closely for dehydration since you are running an intermittant fever, still little appetite and have had diarreaha for days.  Poor baby will have 2 more visits guaranteed, and we are hoping that is it.  

As I was driving you to grammy's late this morning my mind was in a pity party for you/us after everything we've gone through.  I was jolted back to reality when I was pulled over for speeding in a noon time school zone.  Just a reminder of my good luck.  You waved at him, which was great it made him feel really bad, more than once he said "I wish I didn't have to do this".  But he still gave me a ticket.  Of course.  I must remind myself, it can always (and will) get worse.

title courtesy of the new Counting Crows cover album Underwater Sunshine: song "Hospital"  

1 comment:

Ashley H said...

Poor baby. Hoping it's just a random uti & nothing more serious.