Spring Break

We have had a very eventful week for spring break. It all started actually a couple weeks ago I noticed Teryn was just not acting herself. Going on my instinct I made an appointment with her pediatrician. Sure enough she had a double ear infection. One was pretty advanced and the other was just beginning. Teryn doesn't pull on her ears or anything like that so we have to use other things for clues. For example, she only wanted to be head and would just shake her head back and forth if she was laid flat. The doc out her on antibiotics and ear drops. We scheduled a follow up appointment for a couple weeks down the road.
I had a yucky cold last week and on the first Sunday of Spring Break Teryn woke up with symptoms. I never ran a fever but Teryn was running one right away. I began giving her alternating doses of ibuprofen and acetaminophen. On Monday she was even more fussy but the fever seemed to be under control with the meds. James and I worked out in the yard and let Teryn sit in her bouncy seat on the porch. She was only happy for about 20 minutes so I brought her back in and began dinner. She seemed content rolling around on the floor looking at her toys.
As soon as we finished eating I noticed she was making a different noise. I went over to pick her up and noticed her facial coloring was not as pink as I would have liked. From past experience I knew this meant her oxygen saturation was not in the range it should be. Then I noticed her chin quivering like she was cold and her limbs were a little shaky. I knew immediately something wasn't right so I told James we needed to get her to the ER. She then proceeded to vomit on herself from the coughing so we changed her quickly and took her and our nasty yard-smelling selves to the ER.
Luckily our hospital now has a pediatric ER and we have never had to wait to be seen before. However, the check-in window is the same for peds and all others. When I approached the window there was a man standing there slumped over the counter taking his precious time. He was about 2 seconds away from being shoved out of the way while I yelled "Someone needs to see my baby." I now totally understand the unbridled, unashamed, will do anything reaction mommies get when it comes to getting what their children need. Luckily for the man he moved aside just as I was approaching closer to tell him he needed to get out of the way or else.
As I approached the window I rattled off the necessary info I knew the nurse would need (since this is now our 4th trip there). Then I gave the information I knew would get her seen right away, "epilepsy, shaking, and low oxygen."
They took us back immediately and within a few seconds we had three nurses and and the ER pediatrician at her side. They moved us to another room so they could hook her up to the monitors. The doctor said that she believed Teryn was actively seizing so they gave her a shot of Valium to stop it. The doctor ordered blood work to test for a variety of infections. As usual it took many nurses and many sticks to try and get blood. They finally gave up on an IV about an hour into trying. When they first started looking one of the nurses was holding the back of Teryn's head and commented how hot she felt. When we arrived her temp was 99 temporal, the doc asked for another one and this on was 104.7 rectally. So the doc ordered a high dose of ibuprofen immediately to bring it down and a shot of antibiotics to fight off any infection. They went ahead and put her on a nasal cannula for oxygen since her saturation was indeed low. All of the tests came back fine but as we predicted they admitted her because of the low oxygen.
Teryn's pediatrician was on vacation so we had to see the pediatrician who was covering for him. He was good but we sure missed Teryn's doc. It is so nice to have someone who already knows all of her medical conditions and history. So, I had to go through 13 months of medical history with this new doc. All in all he was a fine substitute. As he was check of her he said that her left ear was definitely still infected and put her on a much stronger dose of antibiotics.
We ended up staying for three days until she was able to maintain a good oxygen level on your own. Because of her illness we had to miss two out of town doctors appts. One was with the neurosurgeon which I was able to reschedule easily. The other was with the cleft team. We will now have to wait another 2 months for that appt.
We are home now and she is feeling much better. The fever is gone. She still has this lingering cough which is so frustrating for her since she can't produce a good cough on her own. The biggest issue is that she will gag so much from trying to cough that she will vomit.
She is so sweet though, she is still smiling and playing. She is the most precious thing ever.
Even though this is not how I planned to spend my spring break week, I am thankful that it happened this week and not another so that I didn't have to take more unpaid leave. Thank you Lord for this small provision.