When I left off we had come home from our first overnight at the hospital. Adelle did seem to get better. By Sunday her fever was low grade and she was back to eating and smiling. On monday I didn't call the pediatrician because she was doing even better. However Monday night/early Tuesday morning she woke up with a climbing fever. I paged and then called the Pediatrician Tuesday morning (when he didn't answer his page). He had me meet him at the hospital where we informally met in a free exam room. He quickly told me that Adelle's urine cultures had come back with a bug in it that means she has a UTI and possible a kidney infection. He wrote me a perscription and said if she wasn't better by Thursday to call him again.
Hopeful that this was the end we filled the perscription and started her on it right away. By this point though Adelle was SO SO sick. Her fever climbed back up to 104.8. During the night she rocked and thrashed about moaning. She screamed when I touched her, moaned when left on her own, and shivered and shook. Her lips were purple and her stomach and arms were red and white - a reaction from the antibiotics I'm sure. She was breathing fine so I kept her on it as I knew it was more important to treat the infection at this point. In the morning I tried to give her the meds. I heard her tummy gurgle and then she threw up everywhere. I waited awhile and then tried again, but she just threw up everything again. Upset I called my mom to see if she had any thoughts how to get it in her. She told me to call the pediatrician. I did and he was very concerned. He called ahead to the emergency room at the hospital while I packed up Adelle and got ready to meet him there. We waited for 2 hours for a bed in the pediatric emergency unit. She had an IV put in her hand, and they started antibiotics pretty quickly. Because she had been so sick for so long and because of her reaction to the oral antibiotics they gave her we were admitted into the Stollery a little later that day.
We didnt' get a bed upstairs in the Stollery until shortly after midnight. Even then they didnt' have a crib for Adelle. I signed a consent form for her to sleep in a bed with me. She was so miserable though. I tried to get her to sleep beside me but she didnt' want to touch me.
Eventually she settled horizontally on the bed. I curled up as best I could at the foot of the bed.The next morning she hasn't improved enough for them to try her back on the oral meds. They continue the IV and explain to me that E.coli was the "bug" found in her urine that indicated a UTI. I was concerned it was something I had given to her - bad food or something but the doctor assured me that this was not the scary E.coli that the media talks about. This was probably something in her poop that she picked up because the passage from outside to inside is so short for girls. They also wanted an ultrasound of her kidneys to see if any damage had been done. We'd be staying for another night. Brian took the day off and stayed with me and Adelle at the hospital. I popped home for a shower and to update those who were praying for us.
When I got back Adelle was definitely feeling better. Brian went home to bed and I hung out cuddling and playing with her. Shortly after I noticed that her IV hand was wet and the white block her hand was taped to was pink. I called the nurse and sure enough she had managed to rip the IV out of her hand. They removed it and decided to leave it out at least until morning. Perhaps she could even start the oral meds at that time and we could skip having to put the IV back in. What freedom! It was so nice not having to work around those tubes, we both slept better that night!
Friday morning - still no ultrasound had been done and Adelle is IV/antibiotic free. I bugged the nurses about it again. They would leave to "look into it" and not come back. Arg. Apparently they were understaffed and really busy. However it just seemed to me that everyone gave up working on Fridays. My mom came around 11 to sit with me and help out. With Adelle not having a crib I couldn't even go to the washroom without having someone have to come and watch her. It wasn't always easy to get a nurse to come either so it was great when my mom or Brian was there to help out.
They took us down to ultrasound right away. The tech had to get the doctor to come and take a look as one of her kidney's is enlarged. Other than that they were beautiful though! We're hoping it's just from the infection and that will get better but we'll have to follow up in a couple months to make sure.
Around 3:30 (I had been bugging the day nurse about Adelle's meds all day) we got a new nurse. I asked her about Adelle's meds and she shrugged at me and said - it's not a big deal - we'll get them eventually. I asked her if she realized Adelle hasn't had any antibiotics since yesterday? She argued with me (I couldn't believe it) and said she had it through IV only this morning. What IV...she ripped that out last night and now it's been almost 24 hours! When she realized this she very quickly ran off to "check", but came back no less than 5 minutes later with the meds.
Adelle developed a slight rash and we spent another night observing her. Brian spent the night again. I was so glad to have his company! I am so thankful to my brother in law Chris who went out of his way to take care of our dogs so that Brian could do this. Anyway she handled the meds fairly well so in the morning we were jumping to get discharged! Of course nobody came. Not even nurses. Finally around 12:30 a doctor shows up. He wondered about us staying another night but I am fairly confident that I can take care of Adelle from home now. He released us and we finally got to go home.
Adelle is doing SO much better. She still has kind of a deer in the headlights look - and is very wary of anyone other than mommy and daddy - Grandma got the sober stare all afternoon. She is taking the meds well and we hope in another couple days she'll be back to her monkey-ish ways!
1 comment:
Oh Conni, I wish that I could have been around to come and spell you off a bit. Poor Adelle and wow what an ordeal for you. I'm so thankful that she is doing better. Praying for good nights of sleep now.
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