When it rains, it pours...

It has been a whirlwind of a week. It all started Friday night.

Friday night Lilly woke me up around 11:30pm, not crying just very restless. I got her out of bed and tried to feed her. She wasn't very hungry but just a little fussy. I took her temperature. It was 98. She usually sits around 97 - 97.5 in her underarm. So I layed her in bed with us. For the next couple hours she stayed very restless and kept me awake. Around 1:30 am she felt a little warm so I took her temperature again, this time 99. So I went for the Tylenol in hopes of stopping this. She slept for about 30 minutes. Then we went and rocked in the chair. By 3am or so her temperature had climbed to 102! She was on fire and she was panting like a puppy. So around 5am I finally bugged my dad on what I should do. Of course the answer was more Tylenol! That's always been the answer growing up! So I waited until it was 4 hours apart and gave her more.

Around 8 am (now Saturday) I then call our pediatrics urgent care. By this time her temperature had finally come down. They told us to hang tight unless the temperature came back up. She was fussy all day and I was exhausted from no sleep. Eric did take her for a couple hours in the morning to let me sleep.

Then 2 pm her temperature is creeping up again. I go ahead and give her MORE Tylenol. I texted my dad and he told me to go to the ER. Seeing my dad would never take us to the doctor unless we were dying or had lost a limb when we were kids, I figured that we REALLY needed to go (plus he is an ER doctor himself). At that time her pediatrician had called us back and recommended the same. So we pack up her bag and head down to the Children's ER in Columbia.

We get there and I was surprised at how quickly we were triaged and how quickly they took us in! Her age coupled with her heart condition I think they were eager to rule anything serious out. So we get into the back, and then the torture began. From a medical point of view I completely understand everything they did absolutely had to be done. But from a mom point of view it was really hard. They placed an IV catheter in her hand, passed a urinary catheter, and took some chest x-rays. This took a major toll on her. She had never cried so hard in her entire life. During the IV her lips started turning blue, it was all I could do to hold it together :( The x-rays looked fine and the blood work only showed an elevation in white blood cells. The urine labs were pending. They diagnosed most likely a virus. So we were sent home.

My poor baby was sooo exhausted and her breathing was labored from her poor heart being overworked. I let her sleep in the bed with me all night Saturday and she did okay. Sunday she barely ate anything. She was awake for less than 2 hours and slept the rest of the day.

Monday we headed down to the pediatrician office for a recheck. She was still getting low grade fevers by this point. She had also lost a few ounces over the weekend and was back to her weight from two weeks ago. The urine culture had come back in by Monday and poor thing has a urinary tract infection! They were also concerned about her breathing, so her meds were bumped up.

Now the bad part of this all. Apparantly in children less than 2 years old UTI's are uncommon enough that you have to find a reason for it other than sitting in a sitnky diaper. SOOOO once this infection clears up we have to go back to the Children's Hospital to the radiology department. They will ultrasound and xray her kidneys and bladder to see if there are any problems. The worst part of this visit is she has to get a catheter passed again! I feel soooo bad for her because she did not appreciate it at all the first time around.

Oh it's life I guess.... Currently she is feeling better. Still very tired from the weekend. She got to skip Monday and Tuesday from school. We'll just take it one day at a time I suppose.

For now our happy baby is starting to show her face again!