My Visit to PCMC

What a blur this week has been. Now that it's calming down a bit, I have a moment to reflect. Last Saturday night Baby M started sounding a little congested. It shouldn't have been a big surprise, her sister had yet another cold and kept putting the binky in her mouth. Sunday Baby M had a stuffy/runny nose, and Monday she just cried and cried (which isn't like her). Monday afternoon, I made an appointment for her to see the Dr. I just wanted to get her looked at and make sure she was okay. In the office, her temperature was 100.3 The Dr. said that if it got over 100.4 I needed to take her into Primary Children's. That kind of freaked me out. This is my 4th kid and you'd think I would know that, right? Wrong. I guess I've never had a sick baby before.

That night was a birthday party for my cute niece. We went and had a good time, but I was worried about Baby M. We came home, she ate and slept and then woke up at 12:30. The second I picked her up I could tell her temperature was up. I got out the thermometer and it was 100.7 I debated on what to do, wait until morning to take her in or go now. There was an on-call nurse at her Dr.'s office and she advised us to take her in then. So at 1:30 in the morning, Baby M and I made the 35 minute drive up to Primary Children's Hospital. I have to admit I had a good cry on my way up there (good thing there wasn't much traffic). It's a very helpless feeling when a child is sick and there's nothing you can do. I feel like I'm turning them over to the Lord and putting my trust in him that they'll be okay.

We spent the first 3 1/2 hours in the E.R. at PCMC. They collected a urine and blood sample, put in an IV and did a spinal tap. Quite the workup for such a little girl. I guess it's standard for babies this young. They want to test for everything. As I watched them put in her IV, I literally felt nauseous. This same thing happened as I watched Little Man get staples in his head. I would rather be the one going through the pain than watch my own children do it. I stepped out when they did the spinal tap. After all the tests were run, they started her on antibiotics. We had to be admitted to wait for all the test results to come back. So we moved upstairs to a room and I got about 40 minutes of sleep for the night.

From the time the test were submitted we had to stay 36 hours. Everything ended up coming back negative (which is good), except for the Roto Virus. Which is basically the common cold virus. I'm glad it was nothing serious, but it ended up being the longest few days of my life. Jeff took two days off to stay with the other kids. It was hard not being home for them. We've had a few behavior issues as a result. They're still adjusting to having a baby take all of mom's time and attention, and then this.

I learned a lot of lessons through this experience. One is that I have amazing family, friends, and neighbors. Everyone was so willing to help. A friend brought Jeff and the kids dinner while I was gone, which was very thoughtful. Another friend watched the kids for a few hours before I was able to come home. It's always hard for me to accept help, but sometimes you have to. I realize how truly blessed I am to be surrounded by such great people. I also learned how precious these little people are. I am so blessed to be their mom. I also have an amazing husband. He's a wonderful father and my best friend. I've definitely cried on his shoulder a ton this last month (or more). The last thing I learned was that I could have things so much worse. There are so many sick kids at PCMC. I was amazed as I saw what some of them have to go through. I definitely need to count my blessings. I'm looking forward to some uneventful times ahead.