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October 2, 2008
Not a good follow-up to yesterday
Last night Mandy felt a tad warm, so I gave her some Motrin before putting her to bed. I assumed it was due to one of the two shots she received yesterday. When she woke up, she felt even warmer, so I took her temperature & it was 100.7. Not alarming - some Tylenol & we'll just watch it. She didn't eat anything for lunch & wouldn't even drink her formula. Highly unusual, but maybe my mother-in-law had given her too many snacks. She was over today watching her so I could work & after Mandy woke up from her nap, she called me upstairs to check on her. Her temp then was 102. At this point, I decided I wanted to go back to the doctor. I may not have taken that action if they hadn't told me yesterday that her kidney was large, but I just had no way of knowing whether she was reacting to a shot or if something bigger was going on. And she's never run a fever after a shot before.
So we get there & they want to test the urine. I was expecting a bag of some kind, but the doctor didn't want to go that route because it wouldn't be a sterile sample if they needed a culture. So a catheter it was. Mandy was not happy. Then they wanted to check her white blood cell count, so they stuck her finger. Mandy was not happy. The urine came back ok, but the white blood cell count was 23,000, indicating a bacterial infection of some kind. This meant there would be blood drawn from her arm and an antibacterial shot. And somehow, her temperature rose another degree just in the 30 minutes since I had been there. I'm hoping it was just the stress of the tests, but that concerned me as much as anything else.
While reeling from the previous two stressors and anticipating the next two, I decide a homecooked dinner was out of the question & called my husband to see what he wanted. That was a mistake as we never agree & I was not in the mood to sit & argue over what fast-food fare we were going to make do with tonight. Thanks, hon.
Suffice it to say, after she had been poked, stuck, prodded & violated, we were both in tears. We won't get the cultures back for a day or two, but in the meantime we have to go back tomorrow for a follow up, which means another finger stick & maybe another shot.
And then Monday, we get to go for an ultrasound, downtown, at 7 am. And she can't have anything after midnight. I'm looking forward to waking her up, not feeding her & sticking her in a car for 45 minutes before we even start the procedure. My mother-in-law said something along the lines of hoping they see her quickly & don't make us wait. I assured her my previous experience was that Mandy's volume was such that everyone saw her quickly!
Despite a stress level that is making me do a mental inventory of my liquor cabinet, I'm really, really glad I took her to the doctor today. There's no telling what that fever would have done tonight if I hadn't. And I'm also glad for an ultrasound appt. fairly quickly so I don't have that hanging over my head either.
Speaking of liquor - if you're ever in a situation of owning vanilla soy milk that your toddler won't drink, and you happen to have a bottle of Kahlua, try mixing the two. I'm telling you, they could make a candy that tastes like that & make a killing!
| By Wifeepoo | 5:29 PM
