We made a last minute decision late last week to go to Louisville for the weekend. I was so looking forward to getting together with family, catching up with friends, and even making some time for a little shopping :) But, none of that happened. In fact, I think it'd be safe to say this was by far the worst weekend we've ever experienced. And the only place I wanted to be was home in Lexington.
For several days last week, Ady was exceptionally fussy. She is a very good baby. She may not be one to nap long or often, but she is a very happy baby. I assumed the infamous "teething" was the reason for her fussiness. She wanted to be held nonstop. Every night when Joseph would come home and I went to use the bathroom for the first time that day, she'd scream out "mama!" I started to wonder if it was maybe just a separation stage, but I didn't really know... Thursday I thought maybe she just needed to get out of the house, so I took her out. She was pitiful. Didn't want to eat much at all and just wanted to be snuggled. She felt pretty warm to me and I decided to check her temp. It was 102. Come to think of it, she had felt warm for days prior but I just assumed it was low grade from "teething".
I called her doctor that afternoon and they wanted to see her. So at 5:00 we went in and he said everything looked great, so it was probably just an upper respiratory infection. Assuming everything was fine and there was no infection, we decided to leave for Louisville first thing Friday morning. She cried most of the car ride, I could just tell she was miserable. We made it to Gramme's and she took a little nap. She woke up and my mom and I wanted to take her to a late lunch, then to Target, and finally to pick Caden up from school. We went to Chic-fil-A, and as soon as we put her in the seat she began shivering and shaking. I kind of panicked and said to my mom, "She is shaking!" She turned white as a ghost. My mom grabbed her and wrapped her in a jacket. She settled down, but didnt' so much as look at her food. If that wasn't bad enough, we took her to Target. After about 10 minutes, I realized it was a very bad idea. Everything in the cart went back to the shelves, she went home with Gramme, and I went to pick Caden up from school (because, well, Gramme rarely gets Ady by herself and I thought it might be a nice treat for her :)).
I had been giving her Motrin around the clock and that evening I felt her and it was 104. I called her doctor and the nurse on call said to alternate with Tylenol to bring it down. I wanted her to sleep with me, but she wouldn't. She really actually likes putting herself to sleep. So I woke up every hour around the clock to check her. Usually with fevers, they spike in the night and in the morning there isn't one, or if so it's low. She woke up with 102 (with medicine in her system). I continued to alternate. My gut told me we needed to head back home so she could be at her house and so we could be closer to our doctor. But, I felt like everyone thought I was just overreacting so I didn't. Lesson learned. Listen to the "mommy instinct" instead of what someone else might think. I decided to call her doctor again just to double check and make sure I was doing it all right. They told me to stop alternating and stick with Motrin. Bad idea.
It seemed like that evening she was doing better, although she was still not eating, playing, or drinking, the fever hadn't gone above 103. It had stayed between 102-103. At around 10:00 that evening she had hardly anything of a fever. I was in the basement talking to my mom and dad about how I was feeling better and that it just was probably some virus that was finally working it's way out of her system. I even told them that should she have a low fever and successful night, I'd take her to church with us the next morning. I hadn't so much uttered the words, then Joseph opened the door holding Ady. He said she had been screaming out, "mama!' She looked so incredibly sad. I tried to rock her to sleep, she wouldn't go. I decided that since I was so tired, I'd put her in bed with me in hopes of a good night's rest. This was the greatest possible decision I could have made.
Around 11:30 she had a lowgrade fever. I had set my alarm for 12:30 to check on her, but it didn't go off. The Lord woke me up, I am so confident, at 12:55. She was on fire. I ran to get the temperature and was not prepared for what I saw. 105.0. I checked her other ear-105.1 My heart just sank. I ran to my mom and woke her up. Just about that time Joseph came up from falling asleep in the basement. My mom held her while I tried in a matter of seconds to gather her bag and arrange my thoughts on exactly where we needed to go in this town that is not familiar to me anymore. To say I was terrified doesn't even come close to what I was feeling.
I called my sister in law, Lori, who works at Kosair on Brownsboro Road (the new and much nicer one), asking where to go. She said she'd call ahead and see which one had the least wait time. I was panicked. Tears streaming down my face, I was unable to even make a decision. I wanted my baby seen, and I wanted her seen immediately. We were just about to merge onto the Watterson when she called and said I needed to go downtown. There was no wait and should she need to stay overnight, it was the only admitting one of the two. In a state of panic, I didn't know how to get there. She told me to turn onto 64 West which was right in front of us. Usually I would have gotten onto 65 N, but it was closed because of the bridge. This made it very tricky to navigate. I'm not sure exactly who all was at their house late that evening, but all I know is that a lot of people were talking and coming up with ways to get us there a back way ASAP. I would never have made it without their help.
Joseph dropped us off and I ran full speed to a completely empty ER. They took us right in. They checked her weight and pulse, then took us to a room. The doctor met us in there. She was so pitful.
I explained that she had been running an insanely high temperature for days while taking medicine. She looked at her throat and thought it looked like strep. Her exact words to me were, "If this comes back negative, I'm going to test her urine for a UTI via cathing her and run some other tests since she's had this so long. But, if it's positive, I'll give her an injection in her leg and you won't need an antibiotic." About 10 minutes later she came back and said, no lie, "Well, it's negative, but I'm treating her for strep anyways with an antibiotic. Any questions?" In my head all these thoughts are racing. She had just said if it were negative she'd do further tests and it was negative. Then, she 's going to treat it with an antibiotic instead? I was incredibly confused. I said, "She's been running 104 fever for days, it spiked to 105 and this is all you're going to do?" She then responded, "Well, I mean if you want me to I'll test her for a UTI, but I'm just telling you if it comes back positive, I'll have to do further testing." (In hindsight I'm thinking she just didn't want to do anything else, perhaps she wanted a night with minimal work?). I said, "Ok, like what kinds of tests?" She said, "Well, I'd do an ultrasound of her kidneys and other diagnostic tests because an infection like that can be causing damage to other organs." Just FYI-you do NOT say that to a first time mother if you do not plan to fulfill all these possible scenarios of tests.
A fever that high was scary, as it should be to anyone. She left the ball in my court, but she had made her opinion known. She wanted us out, and fast. My gut was telling me to test something. I mean, for heaven's sakes, prick her finger and test her blood or something that can give me peace. But, instead she handed me a prescription and we were discharged within 30 minutes upon arrival. Here I am with this precious little child that I prayed and endured so long for, who will most likely be my only one, and all I wanted to do was protect her and fix her. And when I couldn't get answers, I kept digging until I could.
As soon as I left the hospital, Joseph's brother Nick, Lori's husband, called to check on her. He was going through all the scenarios with me. "You're there, why not do some tests!" He agreed that you don't want to be ovaranalytical, but also you don't want to miss something. I had this sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach I made the wrong choice by agreeing with her it was fine to go home. Joseph was not really with me on this. He just thought, "Ok, the dr said it.." As her mother, I was so not okay with it.
I made it to the pharmacy in the middle of the night and explained the situation to the pharmacist (as if he was really up for a long, pick your brain chat, at 3 am). I just told him I was restless with my decision to leave and asked about other infections. He told me that she probably didn't have strep (well, duh! The report showed that!), but he said that if there is some type of infection, the fever will continue to spike until it gets out. That Tylenol and Motrin can only go so far. Her poor little body had been working for days to get this out, and it wasn't. He left me at some ease and told me to give it some time to work.
I called her dr when we got home to let them know. The nurse was upset they didn't test, but told me to get in to see the dr if not Sunday, first thing Monday. I checked on her every 30 minutes that night. I was a nervous wreck. She was pitiful most of the morning, and didn't make up in any way, shape or form, for her lack of sleep. She is beyond the point of exhaustion, still is today. She just laid pretty lifelessly in my arms. At 7:30 her doctor's office called Sunday morning to check on her. They said I could come in, but I decided that since we were still in Louisville and that her fever had gone down, I'd wait to give the antibiotic time to kick in and go early Monday.
Later that morning, she took an almost 3 hour nap just sitting on me. I can tell you with great assurance that my daughter has never, and I do mean never, even come remarkably close to sleeping for 3 hours prior to this point. That afternoon, I checked her temp it was 102.6. I gave Tylenol and it went up to 103.4. I just started crying. I wanted to be home. It had to of been one of the longest trips home. I just wanted an answer, and I surely didn't want it spiking to 105 and being nowhere near a hospital. I called the dr again to let them know it was going up. The nurse said all these things to try (i.e. dressing her in nothing but diaper, turning thermostat in house way down, etc, etc). She said if it got to 105 again to call and they'd decide what to do before we went to ER. Thank the Lord I got it to stay down, but it took a long, long time. I put her in a nice cool bath to help and Joseph and I absolutely froze with how cold our house was. After hours of her just moaning and crying, she finally found rest in my arms. My heart was broken into a million little pieces.
I woke up every 30 minutes to check on her. I went an hour between one check and was panicked. But, by 2 am it was just a low grade and I was feeling much, much better. We went to see her doctor and he was absolutely irate, (there really isn't a better word to use), that they didn't check her blood count or urine. He said in a baby that small, especially a girl, you always, always, always check the blood and urine. He said her throat looked absolutely nothing like strep and was very mad that she gave an antibiotic without warrant. He wanted to check her WBC, then prepared me that if it were elevated, he'd have to cath her, a rather traumatic experience (probably more so for mom). The nurse came in to prick her finger and Ady laughed. She didn't shed one tear. I was so very proud of her :)
He came back with good news. It was not elevated! He said had it been a UTI, the Amoxicillan she's on wouldn't even have come close to kicking it, so it would've remained elevated. And he said since he didn't see her to know what her other labs were (which now wouldn't show for other types of infections that would be VERY nice to know now!), he wanted her to continue to take the antibiotic. I left with a huge, huge, huge sigh of relief. You can not imagine the panic that I experienced. I was at least put to ease that what was going on was nothing that was as serious as it could have been.
She is still far from being herself. She's had this for 6 days now. She doesn't run around and play. She's so not Ady, my very wild child :) One thing I know for sure is, if there ever is a time I'm in the ER again with her, I will demand tests. I allowed my passiveness to take over and didn't stand up for what I felt and I am embarrassed. Praise God it was nothing more serious. All you mommies out there reading, God gives us intuitions for a reason, follow them!
Thank all y'all that prayed for us. It has been so exhausting and frustrating, but hopefully she will find rest again soon. I feel like I did when she was a newborn. I've averaged about 4 hours of sleep each night since Friday. I think my body is ready for some sleep. Or Starbucks. Whichever comes first. :) Regardless of how tiring it has all been, there aren't many things sweeter than your very active toddler just needing comfort from their mom.
As I was holding her in the middle of the night a couple nights ago these lyrics came to my mind and I sang them with tears down my face:
"You're gonna have all of me
You're gonna have all of me
'Cause you're worth every falling tear
You're worth facing any fear
You're gonna know all my love
Even if it's not enough
Enough to mend our broken hearts
But giving you all of me is where I'll start"
I may make a lot of mistakes as her mom. In fact, I've made plenty already. I may not always do things right. But, one thing is for sure, I'm giving every ounce of myself to her. My precious little miracle.
For several days last week, Ady was exceptionally fussy. She is a very good baby. She may not be one to nap long or often, but she is a very happy baby. I assumed the infamous "teething" was the reason for her fussiness. She wanted to be held nonstop. Every night when Joseph would come home and I went to use the bathroom for the first time that day, she'd scream out "mama!" I started to wonder if it was maybe just a separation stage, but I didn't really know... Thursday I thought maybe she just needed to get out of the house, so I took her out. She was pitiful. Didn't want to eat much at all and just wanted to be snuggled. She felt pretty warm to me and I decided to check her temp. It was 102. Come to think of it, she had felt warm for days prior but I just assumed it was low grade from "teething".
I called her doctor that afternoon and they wanted to see her. So at 5:00 we went in and he said everything looked great, so it was probably just an upper respiratory infection. Assuming everything was fine and there was no infection, we decided to leave for Louisville first thing Friday morning. She cried most of the car ride, I could just tell she was miserable. We made it to Gramme's and she took a little nap. She woke up and my mom and I wanted to take her to a late lunch, then to Target, and finally to pick Caden up from school. We went to Chic-fil-A, and as soon as we put her in the seat she began shivering and shaking. I kind of panicked and said to my mom, "She is shaking!" She turned white as a ghost. My mom grabbed her and wrapped her in a jacket. She settled down, but didnt' so much as look at her food. If that wasn't bad enough, we took her to Target. After about 10 minutes, I realized it was a very bad idea. Everything in the cart went back to the shelves, she went home with Gramme, and I went to pick Caden up from school (because, well, Gramme rarely gets Ady by herself and I thought it might be a nice treat for her :)).
I had been giving her Motrin around the clock and that evening I felt her and it was 104. I called her doctor and the nurse on call said to alternate with Tylenol to bring it down. I wanted her to sleep with me, but she wouldn't. She really actually likes putting herself to sleep. So I woke up every hour around the clock to check her. Usually with fevers, they spike in the night and in the morning there isn't one, or if so it's low. She woke up with 102 (with medicine in her system). I continued to alternate. My gut told me we needed to head back home so she could be at her house and so we could be closer to our doctor. But, I felt like everyone thought I was just overreacting so I didn't. Lesson learned. Listen to the "mommy instinct" instead of what someone else might think. I decided to call her doctor again just to double check and make sure I was doing it all right. They told me to stop alternating and stick with Motrin. Bad idea.
It seemed like that evening she was doing better, although she was still not eating, playing, or drinking, the fever hadn't gone above 103. It had stayed between 102-103. At around 10:00 that evening she had hardly anything of a fever. I was in the basement talking to my mom and dad about how I was feeling better and that it just was probably some virus that was finally working it's way out of her system. I even told them that should she have a low fever and successful night, I'd take her to church with us the next morning. I hadn't so much uttered the words, then Joseph opened the door holding Ady. He said she had been screaming out, "mama!' She looked so incredibly sad. I tried to rock her to sleep, she wouldn't go. I decided that since I was so tired, I'd put her in bed with me in hopes of a good night's rest. This was the greatest possible decision I could have made.
Around 11:30 she had a lowgrade fever. I had set my alarm for 12:30 to check on her, but it didn't go off. The Lord woke me up, I am so confident, at 12:55. She was on fire. I ran to get the temperature and was not prepared for what I saw. 105.0. I checked her other ear-105.1 My heart just sank. I ran to my mom and woke her up. Just about that time Joseph came up from falling asleep in the basement. My mom held her while I tried in a matter of seconds to gather her bag and arrange my thoughts on exactly where we needed to go in this town that is not familiar to me anymore. To say I was terrified doesn't even come close to what I was feeling.
I called my sister in law, Lori, who works at Kosair on Brownsboro Road (the new and much nicer one), asking where to go. She said she'd call ahead and see which one had the least wait time. I was panicked. Tears streaming down my face, I was unable to even make a decision. I wanted my baby seen, and I wanted her seen immediately. We were just about to merge onto the Watterson when she called and said I needed to go downtown. There was no wait and should she need to stay overnight, it was the only admitting one of the two. In a state of panic, I didn't know how to get there. She told me to turn onto 64 West which was right in front of us. Usually I would have gotten onto 65 N, but it was closed because of the bridge. This made it very tricky to navigate. I'm not sure exactly who all was at their house late that evening, but all I know is that a lot of people were talking and coming up with ways to get us there a back way ASAP. I would never have made it without their help.
Joseph dropped us off and I ran full speed to a completely empty ER. They took us right in. They checked her weight and pulse, then took us to a room. The doctor met us in there. She was so pitful.
I explained that she had been running an insanely high temperature for days while taking medicine. She looked at her throat and thought it looked like strep. Her exact words to me were, "If this comes back negative, I'm going to test her urine for a UTI via cathing her and run some other tests since she's had this so long. But, if it's positive, I'll give her an injection in her leg and you won't need an antibiotic." About 10 minutes later she came back and said, no lie, "Well, it's negative, but I'm treating her for strep anyways with an antibiotic. Any questions?" In my head all these thoughts are racing. She had just said if it were negative she'd do further tests and it was negative. Then, she 's going to treat it with an antibiotic instead? I was incredibly confused. I said, "She's been running 104 fever for days, it spiked to 105 and this is all you're going to do?" She then responded, "Well, I mean if you want me to I'll test her for a UTI, but I'm just telling you if it comes back positive, I'll have to do further testing." (In hindsight I'm thinking she just didn't want to do anything else, perhaps she wanted a night with minimal work?). I said, "Ok, like what kinds of tests?" She said, "Well, I'd do an ultrasound of her kidneys and other diagnostic tests because an infection like that can be causing damage to other organs." Just FYI-you do NOT say that to a first time mother if you do not plan to fulfill all these possible scenarios of tests. A fever that high was scary, as it should be to anyone. She left the ball in my court, but she had made her opinion known. She wanted us out, and fast. My gut was telling me to test something. I mean, for heaven's sakes, prick her finger and test her blood or something that can give me peace. But, instead she handed me a prescription and we were discharged within 30 minutes upon arrival. Here I am with this precious little child that I prayed and endured so long for, who will most likely be my only one, and all I wanted to do was protect her and fix her. And when I couldn't get answers, I kept digging until I could.
As soon as I left the hospital, Joseph's brother Nick, Lori's husband, called to check on her. He was going through all the scenarios with me. "You're there, why not do some tests!" He agreed that you don't want to be ovaranalytical, but also you don't want to miss something. I had this sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach I made the wrong choice by agreeing with her it was fine to go home. Joseph was not really with me on this. He just thought, "Ok, the dr said it.." As her mother, I was so not okay with it.
I made it to the pharmacy in the middle of the night and explained the situation to the pharmacist (as if he was really up for a long, pick your brain chat, at 3 am). I just told him I was restless with my decision to leave and asked about other infections. He told me that she probably didn't have strep (well, duh! The report showed that!), but he said that if there is some type of infection, the fever will continue to spike until it gets out. That Tylenol and Motrin can only go so far. Her poor little body had been working for days to get this out, and it wasn't. He left me at some ease and told me to give it some time to work.
I called her dr when we got home to let them know. The nurse was upset they didn't test, but told me to get in to see the dr if not Sunday, first thing Monday. I checked on her every 30 minutes that night. I was a nervous wreck. She was pitiful most of the morning, and didn't make up in any way, shape or form, for her lack of sleep. She is beyond the point of exhaustion, still is today. She just laid pretty lifelessly in my arms. At 7:30 her doctor's office called Sunday morning to check on her. They said I could come in, but I decided that since we were still in Louisville and that her fever had gone down, I'd wait to give the antibiotic time to kick in and go early Monday.
Later that morning, she took an almost 3 hour nap just sitting on me. I can tell you with great assurance that my daughter has never, and I do mean never, even come remarkably close to sleeping for 3 hours prior to this point. That afternoon, I checked her temp it was 102.6. I gave Tylenol and it went up to 103.4. I just started crying. I wanted to be home. It had to of been one of the longest trips home. I just wanted an answer, and I surely didn't want it spiking to 105 and being nowhere near a hospital. I called the dr again to let them know it was going up. The nurse said all these things to try (i.e. dressing her in nothing but diaper, turning thermostat in house way down, etc, etc). She said if it got to 105 again to call and they'd decide what to do before we went to ER. Thank the Lord I got it to stay down, but it took a long, long time. I put her in a nice cool bath to help and Joseph and I absolutely froze with how cold our house was. After hours of her just moaning and crying, she finally found rest in my arms. My heart was broken into a million little pieces.
I woke up every 30 minutes to check on her. I went an hour between one check and was panicked. But, by 2 am it was just a low grade and I was feeling much, much better. We went to see her doctor and he was absolutely irate, (there really isn't a better word to use), that they didn't check her blood count or urine. He said in a baby that small, especially a girl, you always, always, always check the blood and urine. He said her throat looked absolutely nothing like strep and was very mad that she gave an antibiotic without warrant. He wanted to check her WBC, then prepared me that if it were elevated, he'd have to cath her, a rather traumatic experience (probably more so for mom). The nurse came in to prick her finger and Ady laughed. She didn't shed one tear. I was so very proud of her :)
He came back with good news. It was not elevated! He said had it been a UTI, the Amoxicillan she's on wouldn't even have come close to kicking it, so it would've remained elevated. And he said since he didn't see her to know what her other labs were (which now wouldn't show for other types of infections that would be VERY nice to know now!), he wanted her to continue to take the antibiotic. I left with a huge, huge, huge sigh of relief. You can not imagine the panic that I experienced. I was at least put to ease that what was going on was nothing that was as serious as it could have been.
She is still far from being herself. She's had this for 6 days now. She doesn't run around and play. She's so not Ady, my very wild child :) One thing I know for sure is, if there ever is a time I'm in the ER again with her, I will demand tests. I allowed my passiveness to take over and didn't stand up for what I felt and I am embarrassed. Praise God it was nothing more serious. All you mommies out there reading, God gives us intuitions for a reason, follow them!
Thank all y'all that prayed for us. It has been so exhausting and frustrating, but hopefully she will find rest again soon. I feel like I did when she was a newborn. I've averaged about 4 hours of sleep each night since Friday. I think my body is ready for some sleep. Or Starbucks. Whichever comes first. :) Regardless of how tiring it has all been, there aren't many things sweeter than your very active toddler just needing comfort from their mom.
As I was holding her in the middle of the night a couple nights ago these lyrics came to my mind and I sang them with tears down my face:
"You're gonna have all of me
You're gonna have all of me
'Cause you're worth every falling tear
You're worth facing any fear
You're gonna know all my love
Even if it's not enough
Enough to mend our broken hearts
But giving you all of me is where I'll start"
I may make a lot of mistakes as her mom. In fact, I've made plenty already. I may not always do things right. But, one thing is for sure, I'm giving every ounce of myself to her. My precious little miracle.
