7.22.2011

the worst first

sweet layla must have heard me talking nonstop all week about how very much so i was looking forward to today. the plan was that she and judah would be spending 24 hours at my parents house so jesse and i could celebrate his birthday. what a treat! we have only done this once before when the dukes watched them so we could take a quick road trip overnight, but the prospect of staying in town, having a date night out and getting to sleep in--in our own beds--had me giddy all week.

well, i got home from work and the babysitter said she had just put layla down for her 4th nap of the day. ehhh...erm? she also said she had only eaten a half a bottle and a few bites of food all day and was just not interested. red flag.

so i went in to wake her up and try to get her to eat. holy smoldering ember, party people, she was a tiny torch. we used the temporal artery thermometer and it said she was 98.4. i checked my temp and it said i was 98.7. i let her wake up a bit and cool off thinking maybe she just felt hot from being under her blanket.

but she was so NOT herself. this baby wakes up SO happy and ready to rumble every single day. this time she was just listless and laying her head on my chest, which is SO sweet and snuggly but way out of the ordinary.

despite multiple 98 degree thermometer readings and jesse giving me, "you're overreacting" looks, my mommy spidy senses were going off like mad. i've always heard crazy storys of mom's intuition or gut feelings saving the day, so i was pushy. i demanded a rectal temp.

102.6

aaaaaand into the car we go. she was beyond pitiful in the waiting room at our doctor's office. whimpering a keening mewl nonstop. her eyes were fluttering, half open and she was clearly out of it and delirious.

2 hours and lots of ugly mommy crying face (i cannot over emphasize how pitiful she was just whimpering and flopping around in my arms) later and we were on our way home with not a lot of answers yet.

my sweet view of my little fever furnace snuggle puppy.

strep test-negative. she got her urine tested (via a handy adhesive bag that i thought would never work because she hadnt drank anything all day, but actually collected some peepee when she had her 7th diarrhea poop of the day all over my shirt and shorts) and they found blood in it. so they did a toe stick to test her blood (24 hour culture) to see if it is conclusively a urinary tract infection. (CRAP! did i forget to wipe front to back at some point? but, no, the doctor said that probably wouldn't have been the culprit).

i thought, oh good, a UTI is no big deal. but the dr. said if it is she'll have to do oral antibiotics, get x-rays of her kidneys, and see a urologist. um, whoa. please not. and then she also got 2 shots worth of antibiotic just to lead the charge against whatever infection might be causing such high fever.

i felt like Evilla McDastardly doing all of this stuff to her in her beyond-fragile state--toe sticks, urine bags up in her junk, shots, exams!. layla has never had so much as a cold in her life, so this one hit me pretty hard since it was so sudden and unexpected and because it just knocked the bubble little spirit out of my girl.

the good news is that treating the symptoms of this "probably a stomach virus but possibly a UTI" is working really well. we are giving her immodium and pedialyte with the good bacteria powder in it to make her poops go back to normal and then we are alternating tylenol and advil every few hours to keep her fever under control.

after her first dose of advil once we discovered the fever, she was her happy little clam self again and you would never have known anything was wrong. can we take a moment and just be so thankful that we live in a time and place where we can just go spend a few bucks to 100% relieve our kids' suffering from awful fevers? so so so thankful for that.

now we are just praying there's no yucky bacteria in her little pee system hiding under there causing all of this.

playing with brother this morning. eating terrence the train's butt is not part of her medicinal regimen, but it's helping

bummed about missing our awesome date night, but SO thankful that we caught this on a thursday night when the dr. was open until 8pm and not had it crop up at my parents house while they were watching her and all the doctors besides the emergency room were closed. thankful for her robust health up to and beyond this point and for the intuition that god gave moms.

thankful the most for my little girly-faced baby and for jesus' grace which is all up in this. it's in the moon and the stars and all the way down into layla's tiny ureters...even if it's not alone in there and there are bacteria or worse things present too. these times remind us to hold our kids with an open hand and that their real father--their great physician--knows the hairs on their heads and the number of their days.

8 comments:

  1. Oh poor baby :-( I'm so thankful Layla has such a sweet Mommy to love on her...

    ReplyDelete
  2. The one time Laine was pitifully, miserably, awfully sick was when she got a UTI. I think she was only about 6 or 7 months, but holy smokes that fever scared the poo out of me, too! But good news! The antibiotics seemed to be all she needed and she was totally fine. Hope the same goes for you guys!

    ReplyDelete
  3. aw, poor baby!! sending get well vibes to the duke house!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Poor baby Layla :( Glad she is back to her playful self and I pray those meds do their job and get rid of that infection.

    ReplyDelete
  5. SOOOOO glad to know she's feeling better. It's crazy when a baby has an UTI. How in the world does that happen?? Great job on listening to your gut! Way 2 go, Mom!!! Glad she'll be better by Cousin night!!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Been following your blog for a while, but this is my first time to post. I just had a very similar experience with my little one and it turns out it was a UTI. We are headed for tests this week to figure out why she got a UTI at 10 mo. Old. Hope your sweet one is feeling much better! Love your blog:)

    ReplyDelete
  7. awe, poor layla... but I would like to note that your daughter and I had our first UTIs ever at the same time- the glue remains

    ReplyDelete
  8. @wendie! that's crazy that you are in the exact same boat at the exact same time. youll have to let me know how your experience goes. prayers for all the little tracts out there.

    ReplyDelete