Testing

Testing from phone post.

When it rains.....

A week before Halloween we had a rough week with sickness....my son had thrown up, my girl then got the throw ups, then they both had nose/chest colds for about a week (I might be convinced it came from the library) Then the holiday came.  In all honestly, I was not looking forward to it because it was hot, it started at 6pm which is right when we normally do bath, etc..I thought all day how I would really rather it be at 4pm when it's still light--and fit better into our day.
Our babysitter brought her 2 kids, her niece and nephew, her husband, and I went with my two little ones to a neighborhood not too far from my house. Apparently my babysitter had gone there in year's past and liked it a lot.  I had no idea how they would do i.e. would baby girl like it, would she be afraid, would my son melt down in the stroller in five minutes, would I get too hot????

Turns out, WE HAD A GREAT TIME!!!!!  My girl LOVED trick or treating....she wanted to hold my hand at the first house, so we walked up, she shyly said trick or treat, got some candy, said thank you, and we ran back down. She was so excited to get that candy! She said, "Can we do another one mama?". I said of course....so we did another..and another....and after every one she'd want to show her treats to our babysitter and ask if we can do another? She was just delighted. I was so excited/happy to see her so excited.

We also had a ton of fun with the costumes....I had purchased the penguin outfit on clearance last year for 10 bucks. Thought it was so darn cute. And the elephant, we actually had that from her FIRST halloween and she wanted to wear it again. We had a dorothy costume all ready to go that a friend had given us and she wanted nothing to do w/ it. Elephant it was.

Couldn't decide. Penguin or Elephant. How about both! I love the hair poof.

Happy Trick or Treaters!!

And now for the rain.....

When we got back from trick or treating my girl got in my lap and just didn't want to move. That was certainly unusual behavior. We took a shower and she said she was cold during the shower....and shivering a bit. Okay, clearly she was starting not to feel well. I gave her a bit of mo.trin before bed and hoped next day better.
Well, when she woke up on Sunday she was pretty warm. The babysitter was here so I ran to the grocery store, and when I came back and felt her forehead she was burning up. Just on fire....she had been falling asleep off and on in the chair and that was not normal for her at all during the day. As soon as I saw her I knew we should go to urgent care. I bundled her up, jammies and all, and off we went.

When they took her temperature there it was 104.7. WHAT?! They checked her for strep which was negative, gave her some motri.n, and said I could watch her at home (uh not w/ that kind of fever) or take her to a satellite ER place not attached to a hospital. Had never to been to one before but they said they send patients there a lot so I said fine, we would go there. They had checked her temp before we left and it was only down to 104.4 so I was not comfortable taking her home, off to ER we go.

We get there and they take all her vitals...her heart rate was high, she was dehydrated a bit even w/ her drinking fluids over last several days....they weren't sure if she had infection or viral so because of her being sick for all of the week they wanted to rule out lung. I questioned them on this because they wanted to do a chest xray--it seemed a bit much considering I didn't hear wheezing/etc and her cough hadn't been 'yucky', but given how she was doing I finally said fine, go ahead.  We also did a urine.....imagine having a major fever, being three, and having to do these tests.....not fun. At all.  It's kind of running together with the sequence but the Dr. also tapped on her back/kidney and she said it hurt. They asked us to do another urine. Why I have no idea but it was not easy to convince her to do the first one let alone the second. She was feeling so sick and her little body was so hot when I was holding her.
The Dr. comes back in and says he thinks we need to take her to the Children's hospital.....of course then I'm starting to panic a bit.....he said that because of her heart rate, her dehydration (he put his finger on her heel and counted after pressing--guess if it takes a little bit, it means no good). And not only should she go to the hospital but she should go over by ambulance.
Uh, what? My gut was saying that was totally unnecessary.....she was conscious, they hadn't done any fluids, etc.. so why would they need to do that?  They said that they needed to start fluids/antibiotics right away and they leave in for trip over to hospital. I asked a ton of questions like why would we start fluids now at all...why wouldn't I just take her over to children's ER and do whatever they needed there?  Also, I didn't want to add something else that might be traumatic for her.  Then he brought the full court press about how if it was his child he would use ambulance, kids crash fast and you don't want your kid to be one of them, he even drew on the bed where he showed adults have a gradual decline, but children don't, etc. After telling them a few times I would go against medical advice and just take her I finally wore down and said fine.

So, that meant next step was to start antibiotic/fluids....which meant I.V.  The nurse had me hold her legs and other nurse had her up top...she tried to get the I.V on one arm but no good....my girl was screaming, of course...but had the nurse gotten it on the first try it might not have been so bad.....but since she didn't, my girl knew what was coming and just melted down. She was pleading w/ them not to do it.....Doctor! Please!...No shots.....it absolutely positively broke my heart. I was trying to be so brave for her but I broke down in tears....just couldn't help it. There is not much worse on earth than seeing your baby in pain, screaming, frightened, sick, pleading.....and you can't fix it. Awful.
And she didn't get it on the second try on the other arm!! I said NO, enough.....we aren't doing it again. Enough. They left the room and I finally got her calmed down.....poor poor baby. At this point my girl was just exhausted.....they initially said the ambulance would come in 20 minutes but almost an hour later we were still there.  They came to check her temp and it had gone down a lot....the earlier medicine must have now just kicked in. I still kept questioning the ambulance, the need for it, etc... but just as I was about to say forget they showed up. So, we loaded up and off we went to the children's hospital.

I am realizing how long this story is getting so I'll shorten it here.....we got there, they put us in triage, and guess what? Sent us right out front to wait w/ the rest of the people. Even though we were brought by ambulance. I KNEW that was unnecessary.
We waited soooo long for them to call us--and while we waited they had us do yet another! urine sample....and finally get taken to a back room.
Once hooked up to machines it showed her heart rate pretty high again.....and her fever was starting to come back up. Dr. wasn't sure bacteria or viral (her urine looked 'suspicious' and they sent off for culture) so she wanted to start on antibiotics. We waited to see if her heart rate would come down just by adding some bottle/popsicle fluids but no good.  Unfortunately that meant I.V fluids/start anti were necessary.

By now we had been to the urgent care, ER #1, an ambulance, and now here. My girl and I were both exhausted.....they had already tried twice at other ER to do it.... and now had to try again.  This time since it was a children's hospital they have different techniques i.e. they rolled her up like a burrito and left one arm out...but they still had one nurse at her head and I was on her legs.....she just fought and fought. By now she knew it hurt. DOCTOR...please...NO! I want the cold stuff! ( the alcohol before the needle)...I WANT BANDAID...no please!! The nurse was trying to distract her by asking what color bandaid, etc..I am caressing her head, telling her I know its scary, we need to help her, I'm here for her, etc....
Just plain awful......and they didn't get it AGAIN!!! I couldn't believe it. Basically she was dehydrated so it was hard to do. They just moved on to the other arm, in her hand.....and finally got it in.  When they said all done, my girl told them in a little voice...thank you. After all that trauma and for her to say thank you because it was over.....oh, this poor child.

I laid in the bed with her while we waited for the fluids to go....and she snuggled right into me.....

THANKFULLY the fluids started working and her heart rate came back down....and after an hour or so we got to go home.
However, a few hours later when we got up that morning I ended up taking her right to the pediatricians office because she had started doing this strange twitch in her face--I was so worried something was going on AND her fever was back. Thankfully they said not to worry about twitch and plan was to see what cultures showed. We battled fever for next several days while waiting for results.

Long story short--the cultures were clear...it was a nasty nasty virus.

I can't tell you how stressful these past few weeks have been......first time in the ER (two of them), first IV, many days of fever, not much food, not much sleep.....Thankfully she has pretty much recovered.

My son....a few days ago he had his first trip to urgent care as well....he had a bite on his leg, no big deal...but the next day (this past Friday) it had grown very red and a ring around it. After calling the nurse line they suggested taking him in.  long story short there--mosquito bites that his skin reacted to.

What a rough go. These are times when being a single parent is beyond tough. Thankfully my babysitter kept my son, spent the night, etc.. but just having someone with me would have helped a lot. I called and texted my old babysitter from old city and she helped me navigate and decide what to do all throughout, etc.. I was thankful for that support.