THE WORST FIRST

Cora is finally home after her first trip to the ER turned into her first hospital admittance. It all started Tuesday night after dinner. Cora was wide awake (but not fussy) and just wouldn’t go to sleep (or, at least stay asleep by herself in her crib). Jay and I took turns holding her until 1am, when he noticed she felt a little warm. A quick check revealed that she had a temperature of 101.4. Yikes! We tried again to be sure we did it correctly (since we hadn’t done a rectal temp in so long). 101.2. Jay called the pediatrician’s office immediately and quickly received a call back that we had to take her in to the ER. Since it was 1:30am and James was obviously asleep, Jay stayed home with him and I took Cora to the ER, naively thinking that I’d be back in a few hours…

There wasn’t a single other patient in the waiting room when I arrived at 1:50am. We breezed through registration and triage. Fever was down a bit (100.8) and all other vitals were fine. She weighed in at 10 lbs even. We were in a room just after 2am. Hooray for small towns!

Here is Cora with the monitor attached to her foot, which she hated (in fact, she hated anything being attached to her throughout our hospital stay, and cried pretty much every time anyone touched her feet or took her temperature, which happened a LOT):

Nurses started coming in and out with all sorts of equipment. Then the doctor came in. She gave me one of those knowing looks of concern, dropped her voice low, and calmly told me that because Cora was less than 3-months-old, fever should not occur at all and we would have to run the full gamut of tests to rule out such scary things as meningitis and pneumonia. She started listing them off: IV, bloodwork, catheter, lumbar puncture, x-ray, cultures… and then she told me we’d have to be admitted for at least 48 hours. By this point I was in tears (I knew the IV would hurt her badly, and the lumbar puncture scared me) and I could tell both she and all the nurses were fully expecting that. Not to mention I was terrified that there was something seriously wrong with my baby! They answered all my questions (procedure details, risks, etc.), then went about getting everything else together to start the exams.

Watching Cora get her IV was the worst thing I have ever experienced as a mom. Sure, I cried a little when James got his first shots back when I was a new mommy, but tears were literally rolling down my face for this procedure. It took FOUR nurses, TWO tries, to place the IV. The first IV, attempted by three nurses, apparently went in, but wasn’t collecting anything. When they pulled it out, I could see that the needle was BENT! Seriously? So they called in another nurse and moved over to the other foot. After 45 minutes of Cora literally screaming, they finally had the IV working and collected the blood they needed.

Here is Cora’s little IV and “splint” to keep it in place:

Next was a catheter to collect a urine sample. That process was much faster, but Cora was just as unimpressed. By the time everything was said and done, her little lips were bright red, her cheeks were flushed (from both the screaming and the fever), and she was exhausted:

Then came the lumbar puncture (otherwise known as a spinal tap). This was to check for meningitis. They wouldn’t let me stay in the room for the procedure. They assured me the test had minimal risk (the needle is placed below the nerves, so paralysis is not a risk) and doesn’t hurt (they numb the area prior to inserting the needle, like with an epidural). However, because they have to hold the baby VERY tightly, curled into a little ball (which babies hate), they scream the entire time. That, and the fact that it is a sterile procedure, meant that I spent that half hour finishing the paperwork to admit Cora to the hospital and hanging out in the consultation area. That’s when I called my mom and dad bawling. By the time I got back to Cora, she was passed out and being sweetly rocked in one of the nurse’s arms. I was so happy to have her back in mine:

After a good nursing session, they sent us into x-ray. Thank goodness Cora is small enough (and without head control) that they couldn’t use the “medieval torture device” to take her x-rays. Instead, I donned the lead apron and held my baby tightly in place for the 2 angles they needed of her chest. She fussed throughout the procedure, but at least there was no screaming, and she was fine as soon as I was holding her again. The x-ray technician was such a nice guy… he rolled us into the room on the hospital bed so that we would disturb Cora as little as possible. In fact, all the staff we dealt with at the hospital, from the ER nurses and doctor to the pediatric nurses and our pediatrician, were really wonderful with us. So sweet with Cora the entire time, and very patient and understanding with me. And of course everyone thought she was just the most beautiful little girl and took every opportunity they could to pet her head.

Around 6am we were finally able to head upstairs to the pediatiric unit, again rolled on the hospital bed. Such service! Our pediatrician came by at 8am and let me know that the spinal fluid was clear – no meningitis (bacterial or viral), and her blood chemistry looked good (other than a shift in the white cells, indicating some sort of viral infection). We would have to wait a full 48 hours for the cultures though, so the earliest we would be going home was Friday morning. Sigh.

Throughout the day Cora mostly slept. Her fever went away, but then dipped back up to 100.6 in the afternoon. After her 2nd dose of Tylenol she slept even sounder. We had some visitors and lots of phone calls. The pediatrician checked in at the end of the day to let us know that the x-ray looked good (no pneumonia) and the cultures were clear at the 12-hour mark. Big Brother James came to visit his sister after school and spend some time with his Mama. We ate pizza, walked the halls (the first time I had been out of the room all day), and played in the rocking chair. After Jay and James left, Cora decided she was ready to wake up for a while… and she was up until after midnight! At 9pm I had gotten her all fed, settled, and sleeping – then the nurse came in and turned on the lights to administer the next round of antibiotics. Of course, that woke Cora, she got mad, then she got the hiccups, and we were up until I gave in and decided to break the rules. I brought her into “bed” (you know, those tiny fold-out chairs?) with me and nursed her until she dozed off. I got a good hour nap in that way (my first sleep stretch longer than 10-20 minutes in over 40 hours), then the nurse was back at 2am to check on Cora. That woke her up until 3am, but I was able to get her swaddled and settled in the crib for a good 3 hours. If only I hadn’t been interrupted by nurse visits and IV alarms every 30-60 minutes during that time… Regardless, I felt much better Thursday morning after getting a little sleep. Cora must have been feeling better too, because I got a few smiles out of her that morning:

The pediatrician checked in again that morning to let me know that the cultures were still clear. As long as Cora could keep the fever away, and the cultures remained clear at the 48 hour mark, we could go home Friday morning (even though she normally makes patients stay 72 hours). They weighed Cora again and she had gained 2 oz in 24 hours. I wasn’t surprised, considering how much she nursed the day before. It seemed to me that whenever she was awake, she was eating. Whether for comfort or nourishment, I was just happy that her fever didn’t keep her from eating (or producing normal diapers) – one less thing to worry about. Jay was so relieved to hear that the cultures were still negative:

The rest of Thursday was pretty uneventful for Cora, but Jay called to tell me that James woke with a wheezy cough. We know what that means… so we bumped up his ear re-check from next week and discovered that his right ear was healed, his left ear was still infected, and he was in the early stages of developing croup. Again. At least we (and when I say we, I mean Jay) caught it early. Again. Since he never had a fever though, he wasn’t contagious and was able to go back to school. Another 3 weeks of antibiotics, and if his ears aren’t better by then, we’ll be referred to an ENT and have to consider tubes. Poor boy just canNOT catch a break! And the rest of Team Lindsay wasn’t doing much better… Jay’s bronchitis was still causing horrible coughing fits. He was allergic to some of his meds. He was exhausted from the sickness and lack of sleep. And I had caught something from the family germ bank as well. Luckily the ER doc was able to take a look at me while we waited for Cora to be admitted to pediatrics, so at least I got some meds for my sinusitis and double ear infection (hadn’t had one since I was a kid, and now THREE since Christmas)! The ER registration staff was even sweet enough to come back to me so that I didn’t have to leave Cora alone in the ER.

Sleep on Thursday night was a joke. Cora refused to sleep by herself (not that I blame her, after everything she'd been through), and we learned that her IV and it's constant alarms were not normal (ya think?), so they replaced the machine. That did the trick for at least 2 hours of uninterrupted sleep, but when Cora woke to eat at midnight, that was the end of my sanity. The poor baby wouldn't settle after eating and was crying differently, so I could tell that something was bothering her. I called the nurses in to check her IV. They said it looked alright, but when they went to flush the line, nothing went through. Apparently it had come out after her last round of antibiotics. No wonder she was crying. So, once again, my baby was poked and prodded. They tried for almost an hour, sticking her right hand in 2 places, trying the other foot again, and wrapping the rubber band all over her arms and legs searching for a suitable vein. When nothing could be found and they couldn't get the IV to stick anywhere, they gave up. They were going to call one of the NICU nurses to try, but I asked them to call the on-call doc first and find out whether we actually needed it (since we were scheduled to go home in the morning). When I didn't hear back from them for over an hour, I gave up, shut my door, turned out the lights, and brought my baby to bed with me again. We dozed off and on until shift change, which was the first time we'd seen anyone since 3:30am. Whatever. The pediatrician came by at 8:30am and said that as soon as we got the "all clear" from the lab we could be discharged. Hallelujah! Too bad it took them until 11:30am to make the phone call and get our discharge paperwork together (ONE measely paper) so we could be released. But again, whatever. At least my baby girl was released with a clean bill of health. We were VERY happy and thankful for that:

Thank you all so much for your prayers and positive thoughts. It was a rough few days and we couldn't have gotten through it without you.

And for the final stats, Cora weighed 10 lbs 3.5 oz at 2am on Friday, so she gained about 4 ounces in the 2 days she was in the hospital. In other news, I got a grand total of 10 hours of sleep in a 77 hour time period. My king-size TempurPedic never looked so good...