TTs Hospital Stay

Now that we're a few weeks out, and things are (almost) back to normal at the homestead, I thought I'd share the experience we went through.

TT was under the weather starting that Tuesday. School sent her home on Wednesday, and that evening she had a low-grade fever. She stayed home again on Thursday, but wasn't too sick. Until that evening. She had a high fever, and I gave her some tylonal, then she napped for 3 hours (not typical of TT, at all). When she woke at about 8, she was at a temp of 103.8. We gave Tylonal again, but after an hour, the temp was still high. That's when we called the 24 hour nurse line, and the nurse said we should take her to the ER. We gave the meds another 1/2 hour to work, but when her fever didn't break, we decided it was time to take her in.

C stayed home with a sleeping Boo, and TT and I were off to Kaiser Sunset's ER at 10 pm. They took us into Triage right away, and gave her motrin which she proceeded to spit out. They took us to a room, where an ER nurse started wiping her down with cold cloths. TT just wanted to sleep at this point, and wasn't upset unless being poked, prodded, examined or wiped. The ER doc came in, and ordered a chest xray. All of this happened really quickly. Then the waiting began. I sat for 4 hours sideways in a gurney with my back against the railing and a 25 lb. TT in my arms. Every 10 minutes, the nurse came in to wipe TT down and check her temp. After about 1 hour, the doc ordered tylonal sepositories and an ice bath. Poor TT did not like either of these! The first speaks for itself, as far as the ice bath... imagine being wiped down with a freezing cold, stiff, scratchy hospital washcloth. BLAH! I don't blame her for crying. After a few hours of this, her fever was under control. She was hooked up to monitors, and when they found that her pulsox was low I had to hold a oxygen mask near her face as she slept. After about 3 hours waiting, the doc came back and said that the xray showed either RSV or pnuemonia, and that we were being admitted to the Pediatric ICU. A team of nurses came in to put in an IV. Now, I have to say, I understand that ER nurses are about getting the job done, not the comfort of the patient, but after 10 minutes of them holding TT down and trying 4 times to find a vein, I was crying more than poor TT. I finally asked if the PICU could do it, since they have more experience with babies. I don't know how long it would have gone on if I hadn't spoken up. The even more frustrating part is that the nurse said to me later that he knew he wouldn't be able to find a vein, but had to try or the PICU would get upset (a PICU nurse debunked this). That was the first of my many "breakdowns." I was so scared for poor T, and didn't know what was to come. It took T maybe 5 minutes to calm down, it took me a 1/2 hour.