She's a Trooper

On Sunday morning I was sitting with Lily and noticed her shaking. It looked like she was shivering but it was clear she was not cold. Dave had been out grabbing coffee with Kate (who was visiting). When he came back I told him that the baby had been shaking and I'd never seen her do that before. As I was saying this, she started shaking again and making weird grunting noises. We took her temperature and realized she was running a fever. Immediately we contacted our pediatrician who advised us to take the baby to the hospital. He said because of her age (under 6 months) they would want to do some blood tests and check her out. When we got to the hospital she was running a fever of 103 and was clearly not herself. She normally is a very happy baby and is always flashing smiles. Suffice it to say, we were concerned.

They ended up doing a series of tests--including a lumbar puncture (awful)-- and determined that she had a urinary tract infection. So, we were admitted on Sunday evening at Women and Children's Hospital. That little girl of ours is such a trooper. They had to give her an iv to administer fluids and antibiotics. They also had to take her blood several times (which is more involved for an 11 week old) and do an ultrasound. Thankfully it appears that the source of the fever was the urinary tract infection. We had to rule out other possibilities before we could go home. Now we just have to figure out why she got the UTI and if she will be more prone to them in the future. We'll have to go back for an outpatient procedure in a couple weeks once she is feeling better.

I've worked in hospitals since I was in high school. Some settings were harder than others. I have to say though that seeing sick children is the worst. As you walked down the hallways you could see all the little ones in their rooms--many of them on our floor were babies. Some, we were told, were critically ill. It certainly takes a special type of person to help treat these kids. Our good friend is a Pediatric Fellow in Cincinnati. He deals with critically ill children every day in the intensive care unit. I remember asking him once how he could do his job without letting it affect him on a daily basis. He answered fairly quickly that he thinks of it in a different way. Without him, many of these kids wouldn't have a chance. He's there to help give them a chance. So today I want to say thank you to him and thanks to all people who work in Healthcare--including my sister and sister-in-law. I know they are not appreciated as much as they should be. It's very consoling as a patient or family member of a patient to be surrounded by people who are caring and sympathetic.

Here are a couple pictures of Lily. I took these with my cell phone. She's obviously feeling better in these and looks more like herself (otherwise I wouldn't have posted). I'm glad she's home today and smiling. Keep her in your thoughts!