Sleepless Nights - Part Two

Remember how I posted about the crazy high fever and how Lily ended up sleeping with us for a few nights? After 7 days of the fever, I took her in to see the doctor that Thursday the 18th. Virus. Go home and if she gets worse or the fever lasts two more days come back.

On Saturday afternoon, she woke up from her nap with a 103.9 fever. I called the nurse and she said to go in. What a night! Because she had no other symptoms other than the fever, they were pretty baffled. So we did a urine test; not fun for someone who doesn't actually control their bladder yet. Then we did a blood test; lots of tears. Finally, we did chest x-rays; LOTS of screaming. Oh, my poor baby. And it was bed time. And she was miserable. As a precaution, they gave her a shot of antibiotic. More tears. The funny thing is that after each traumatic encounter, she would babble away as if to tell us about all the horrible things they had done to her.

That night was the first relief we had all week. She slept a lot better. I gave her some more Tylenol around 3 that night, and pulled her into bed for the last time. We finally got some sleep and we all slept until almost 9 that morning. Crazy! Her fever had broke and we were Tylenol free.

We went back to the doctor on Sunday afternoon for a review of the tests and her second dose of antibiotic. Her temperature had gone back up to 101, but she was no longer acting crazy. This doc was not my favorite. After explaining to the nurse why we were there (and everything was in our electronic chart, Doc comes in and asks "What can I help you with today?" I know that it's the weekend and no one is seeing regular patients, but I saw the nurse write F/U on the check-in paper (for follow-up, people, get your mind out of the gutter.) After explaining once more, the nurse went to get the antibiotic and came back with two syringes. What!?!? Two?!? She didn't want to do two because Lily was so young. I made her look at the chart from the day before to prove we did only one shot and were anticipating only one more in the other leg. After she got her second shot we were on our way home.

From Sunday night on, everything was peachy. She was eating well and acting her normal crazy self. However, she had gotten used to waking up in the middle of the night and crawling into bed with us. I had to nip that in the bud. So when she woke up in the middle of the night on Monday night, I made her cry it out. I know, mean 'ol Mom. I turned off the baby monitor and went back to sleep. Soon enough, she tired out and fell asleep. The next morning I found she had poop in the middle of the night. Great, now I have guilt. I felt terrible. Luckily, the rest of the week went smoothly, and she hasn't really woken up since.

Except . . . last night . . . she had a bad dream. We rocked and she went back down without too much of a fit. Nothing ever came from all our testing. It was concluded that she had a virus and the fever broke over the weekend at the same time we received the antibiotic. We did find out from the new blood test that Lily's iron has dropped even more. Because she was sick, and a little picky in her eating, our regular doctor has given us two weeks to get her iron up; Doc ordered red meat. So Lily is on a high iron diet; baby oatmeal, french toast, beans, peas, roast beef, and an egg salad sort of concoction with yogurt (sounds gross but she loves it.) And that was just today's menu! Since she has been feeling better she is eating like crazy. And since she is so skinny, after she wolfs down all her meal, I continue to let her graze the rest of the day. Pray for Bug. Doc warned us that the once month iron dosage they would have to put her on is not pretty. We go back sometime after the 12th.

But for the most part she is healthy and doing great. It was wonderful to go back to church on Sunday after missing 2 weeks, even if she did get her hand slammed in the cupboard. (Just teasing! She's fine.)