More than we could ask or imagine!!: September 2008

Auntie Terry helped us out by watching Phoebe so we could get some rest, she used to be a pediatric icu nurse

I feel awful!

I don't like this cage!

A wagon ride is okay though.

Michael learned how to operate the hospital bed and of course TV remote:)
I thought I'd share about our trip to the hospital. We got home after Phoebe's court hearung and she felt really, really hot. I thought I'd just check her rectal temp since earlier she was 99.5 with the forehead thermometer, and had barfed on John before the court date. She was fitful on Sunday night, I actually had to rock her back to sleep twice. She wasn't particularly warm then so we thought she was teething. We were a little shocked to find that it was 104.5. She had no respiratory symptoms whatsoever and really wasn't acting like she had the flu. Both John and I thought that merited a trip to the doctor other than himself, we bypassed the urgent care and went to John's place of work as we figured she would have to get her blood drawn and the clinic doesn't do tiny babies well we found out from previous experiences. Well, that wasn't too fun, they failed on urine catheter(a nurse, her dad, and another doc). They had to poke her twice for her blood test and then barely got enough blood. Plus, she had to get her ears cleaned out of wax so they could view her eardrum...well, her blood test showed 25000 WBC, her urine culture was positive for nitrites and bacteria...she was given a shot of rocephin and we took her home at 1030 pm. NO we didn't stay at the ER that long, we first appeared at 530 pm, but she didn't have enough urine to cath so we had to wait-we went to small group in the middle of it all...only because hubs worked there was he able to do that...
Anyway, she woke at 330 barfing and gagging and burning hot, and bit lethargic. We gave her some ibuprofen and tried to get her to settle down but John finally said she needed to go back to the hospital, get rehydrated, and admitted. The doc working didn't agree with him because after they gave her a phenergan suppository(helps her with the nausea and vomiting) she drank a bottle of milk. Well, thank God the next shift came on and agreed with John, Phoebe's white count was too high, she was barfing, and spiking temps, so she needed to be admitted before it got worse. They had to diagnose her with pyeloneprhitis(kidney infection) at this point because of her symptoms. Normal urinary infections don't give you high temps nor nausea and vomiting. I know John would have pushed for it if the doc hadn't agreed, he's seen too many cases worsen that they had to be sent to the specialty hospital which is about an hour away.
So little P got a hospital cage-I mean crib. We thought it would just be a 24 hour thing, well, the next morning her white count was still 24000, she wasn't eating anything, and her diapers were dry despite the IV. Obviously, we weren't doing it right. I was cringing, everytime they weighed her, she lost weight, 2 lbs out of 18 isn't so grand. So we had to wait for the urine culture to come back. They also had to do an ultrasound, just to make sure her kidneys were okay and didn't show any pathology as to why this would occur in one so young. Well, after too many pokes and prods, she wasn't too aimiable a girl, and that was even when she was lethargic. This is the first time she's actually let us cuddle her without being a squirmy worm.
So the urine culture comes back and they were using the wrong antibiotic. The E coli they found was hightly resistant to a lot of the antibiotics, including the one they had given her. They do a senstitivity test on the bacteria to see which antibiotic would kill it, it was very surprising to all of us that it came back this way. This is what overuse of antibiotics does, makes the bacteria resistant to them. On my soapbox, don't go begging your doc for antibiotics like your z-pak because you think it makes you feel better, 90 percent of the time you have a virus, and using antibiotics needlessly leads to things like this. We thank God for the wisdom He had given us that to not go home after her round of antibiotics, and bolus of IV fluids thinking she would get better. My take home on this? If you have a tiny tot, better to be cautious. Especially when their white count is high and they are barfing and not able to keep fluids.
Well, the next day she was feeling much better after a couple rounds of the new antibiotic. She wanted to get down out of our arms, and actually ate a few bites. She was even peeing more. The doc thought if we felt comfortable taking her home despite her lack of appetite, he'd let us go. So of course, we sprung her loose.
Michael got to have a slumber party at his cousins, I think he actually enjoyed it while Phoebe was in the hospital. Also, her timing couldn't be better, John had 5 1/2 days off while this all happened.

I'm happy to report she is doing much better, sleeping much better, eating better, but I still think she'll lose some weight because she is not up to par. Her kidney ultrasound came back normal, but we have to follow up with a bladder ureter xray at the children's hospital to make sure that the urine isn't refluxing back into her kidneys.
Thanks to all of you who have prayed for us, and sent kind words to us. It truly was a blessing in a very stressful time.

Little Miss American Citizen

So this afternoon we went down to the county courthouse to make it official a second time, or at least get a US birth certificate! Phoebe R Collingham is officially a US citizen, not yet at USCIS until we apply for her certificate of citizenship, whatever happened to if your parents are US citizens and you are officially theirs, you are automatically a US citizen regardless of where you are born? Oh, of course, the government wants more money...oh well, in less than 45 minutes we were in and out of there! Glad to have that checked off. Yeah, Phoebe!!!