Okay, so once again I haven't fallen off the face of the earth, just been so incredibly crazy busy that I haven't had a chance to scratch, much less sit down and type anything worthwhile! I am now however caught up to some extent, so I plan to try and sit down every day (okay maybe realistically more like every other day) and catch up on what all has been going on in this crazy house!
As you can see by the title of this entry we had a trip in to the ER on Sunday for my poor sick little mouse. I really feel like a failure in the mothering department on this one too. Why? Maisie has been running a low grade fever between 99.2 and 99.6 for about a week, and maybe sporadically for the week before that ~ I attributed this to her finally cutting some teeth so I thought nothing of it. Now had this been my first rodeo I most certainly would have called the pediatrician on about day 2 of this low grade fever, at which point they would have had me bring her in to check her for an ear infection only to say that she didn't have one that it was something viral, and to just let it run its course ~ now of course somebody with some form of a communicable disease would have breathed on her in the process and she would return home with a sickness that she didn't have upon arrival. But, since this is my second go round I find myself to be much more at ease with the whole mystery fever thing ~ unfortunately that came back to bite me in the ass this time! On Saturday I hosted a baby shower and Maisie was a bit fussy and clingy, but not at all warm so I didn't give it much thought. Saturday night the boys went on a camping adventure here in the neighborhood so it was just Maisie and I enjoying the silence of the night. I put her to bed about 7:00 and then I worked on some things until I was ready to go to bed about 10:30 ~ I went in to check on my mouse and she was just on fire! I took her temp and it was 102.8 ~ yikes! I know they say that in kids that is not a high fever, but I just find that entire over 102 degree thing a little unnerving. I gave her some Tylenol and put a call in to the nurse who said that she would need to go in within 24 hours to be evaluated, and since the pediatrician's office was not open on Sunday that meant an urgent care clinic or the ER. I gave the Tylenol time to kick in and checked her temp again which had come down to 101.5 so I decided that I would wait until the daylight hours to haul her anywhere ~ you know people are packed in those places like sardines once the sun goes down! The next morning her temp was back up to 102.8 so Scott called Texas Children's to see what the ER was looking like ~ it was amazingly empty, so I loaded up the mouse and off we went for our germ filled adventure.
Upon our arrival in germ hell, I swear when I say this there is no exaggeration, we had literally just walked through the door and a kid barfed on the floor! It was all I could do not to run out of there screaming and covering Maisie so that she couldn't possibly be invaded by any germs! Fortunately we were in the actual ER part for only about 10 minutes ~ had been through Triage and admissions in record time I think ~ thank heavens! They have a Fast Track unit that is staffed with Pediatric Nurse Practitioners that they send you to I guess if you are not in danger of dying at any given minute ~ fortunately she was not in danger of dying so off to the Fast Track unit we went. This was much more like a doctors office setting ~ there was NOBODY in the waiting room, which we were only in for about 3 minutes, before they put us into a room where we stayed until we left. They checked her ears which were perfectly fine, no infection, so the next thought was a urinary tract infection ~ they took a tiny little catheter to get a urine sample which was apparently just ripe with bacteria ~ BINGO problem solved! She got a super duty antibiotic shot while we were there to get her started on the road to recovery and is also taking an antibiotic for the next 10 days. So far today she is fever free, but she was yesterday until mid afternoon, so we will see if she remains that way all day or not. I just really feel terrible about the whole thing ~ here she was sick for an entire week and I didn't do anything about it. I guess I shouldn't beat myself up over it though since every mother I have talked to said they would have written the low grade fever off to teething as well and also would have done nothing about it. Had it been the first baby I would have most certainly hauled her in sooner, but at that stage in the game nothing would have been done anyway and it would have just been a wasted trip ~ although that wasted trip would have helped with the guilt I am currently feeling knowing that I had tried to help make her better. So, on that note I am done dwelling on what I didn't do and moving on to making sure she gets better.
No comments:
Post a Comment