ER Baby

What a day....we had to take sweet baby Hannah to the ER...It was a long morning but thankfully everything seems okay. Here's the story...
Hannah got sick on Friday night (as in-puked in her bed. and man was it gross). She was okay on Saturday...just seemed to be fighting her teething like crazy but didn't get sick or anything. Sunday she seemed to be doing okay too but had some pretty nasty diapers and her appetite was terrible. Still, she was having wet diapers, etc. so we thought we were doing okay. She was on tylenol pretty frequently for her teething.

This morning when I got her up...she was nothing like her usual self. Usually, when I go into her room, she's happy to see me and standing up and squealing. This morning, she was sitting there, looking none to happy and wimpering a little bit. Usually, when I lay her down to change her diaper, she throws a fit and immediately needs her bottle shoved in her mouth so we can get thru that morning diaper change. This morning I'd decided we were going to work on eliminating that morning bottle. She didn't cry. She just laid there, with her paci. She didn't do much of anything at all. Usually, after I change her diaper, she crawls off (ditching the bottle she's already drained) and babbles away and plays. This morning, she laid there until I picked her up. I held her on my lap. Usually she does not cuddle. She laid against me and was limp like she was sleeping. Brooke got in her face and was all "hey hannah! how are you today!". Usually she squeals or swats at Brooke. She didn't move. Her eyes moved some, but she pretty much stayed right where she was, nestled against me. While I was holding her, I noticed that her breathing seemed shallow and her little heart was racing like I've never felt before. Fortunately Matt was home (sick) and I had him come hold her and see what he thought. He said "I think we're going to the ER".

I don't know about your family doctor, but on Monday mornings, it is almost impossible to get thru even to the appt scheduler at our doctor. So I tried calling several times and couldn't get thru. We sent Brooke off to school with grandma, and got Hannah in the car. I finally got thru at the doctors and they got the nurse on the phone, and she said given the symptoms to go ahead and go to the ER. We were already 1/2 way there anyways.

We got in past triage pretty fast, were in the waiting room about 15 minutes, then waited about another 20 minutes for the nurse to come in our room. They had us put Hannah in a little gown. (ache to mommy's heart #1). They asked some questions and put a little puls-ox/heart rate monitor on Hannah's toe. It was reading in the 160s. Should've been more in the 130's or so. We sat there some more. We got her to drink her juice and eat some yogurt melts and she chippered up some. Then they came in and said that they were going to need to draw blood, start an IV line (hopefully in the same stick) and do a cath to get a urine sample. And they wanted mommy and daddy to wait outside while they did all that... so baby doesn't sit there and wonder why we aren't saving her from the torture and when it's done we can swoop in and rescue her. (ache to mommy's heart #2). We waited. She screamed. she stopped. we heard her screaming more. (heartache#3). I just knew they were having trouble getting a vein. When we went in there, that had indeed been the problem. Poor sweet Hannah.

Then we had to take her for a chest xray. They wanted to see if there was anything in there that might be causing any of this. If you've never had a baby get an xray...I don't recommend it. Torturous to see. They stuck her in this tube for lack of better description. She was upright and kind of on a little seat thing, with this casing that wrapped around her. With her arms stretched above her head. She was strapped in like a hotdog in a bun (heartache#4). When they were trying to get her in there the poor little thing was trying frantically to stick her paci back in her mouth before they trapped her arms. I said "ohooh let her get her paci in!"...which they did. They hadn't even noticed she'd had ahold of it. So after watching that torture we got to back to our ER room.

They started a saline drip to get her hydrated. She fell asleep laying on mommy...she was so tired...They did 2 bags, and put some antibiotics in the 2nd bag. Just in case I think is what they said. All the tests came back okay (except there is one blood test that takes 3 days), xrays looked fine. Given the description of her symptoms, etc; they determined that she was either dehydrated or had a fibrile seizure (not sure that's the right word; but basically a seizure that is brought on by a spike in a temperature). Her symptoms were similar to how they would be after one of those seizures happened and she might have had one right before she woke up and we saw the after-effects. My gut tells me it was probably dehydration...because while we were waiting she did perk up some once we got her juice and snacks going.

We got home and she slept for 3 hrs. Her appetite is not great right now, but we kept getting fluids down her. I don't know if it's a tummy bug that's brought this all on, or if the appetite problem is from teething or what. We go to our family doctor tomorrow for a follow-up visit. Say some prayers that she will be back to her old self soon.

The whole time we were in there, I'd tear up anytime they had to do something to her. My heart just hurt watching my baby hurt. I kept thinking about the McClenahan's and what they went thru with Baby Cora. I just cannot imagine. It certainly reminded me to keep praying for them as I thanked God that all our tests came back fine, etc.

So that's the start to our week. Let's hope it slows down - a lot!