Sunday: Riley woke up cranky. Really cranky. Sunday afternoon, she spiked a fever. She took a long afternoon nap, woke up and still had a fever. We cuddled with her, and gave her motrin. Her fever went down and she acted semi normal. She went down for the night at regular time and slept through the night.
Monday: I called to cancel a doctor's appointment for Riley. She was supposed to get a vaccination booster but they won't give a kiddo shots if they've had a fever in the last 24 hours. The nurse asked to me to go ahead and bring Riley in. This was early in the morning. before Riley woke up. Since she had slept through the night, I assumed her fever had broke and thought the appointment was unnecessary but obliged the doctor's office. The appointment was at 2. In between that phone call and her doctor's appointment, Riley literally did nothing but sleep. I tried rousing her around noon to eat, but she had no desire. So we take her in. The doctor does labs and a urine culture but gets negative results. However, she doesn't like Riley's lack of energy and lethargy and recommends that we take her in to the ER because they can run more comprehensive tests than a pediatrician's office. We get to the hospital around 4 pm and are taken back pretty quickly because our pediatrician had called the ER about us. We're admitted around 7 pm for dehydration concerns. Sleep was not much that night, as they had her IV line going off (beeping) every 2 hours to check on her. That meant she was up, and cranky, every 2 hours. Sleep came in 1.5 hour increments for me.
Tuesday: Everything is negative but she's still acting out of sorts; she's not smiling and playing. However, her fever breaks that evening. When we learn that we're not going home on this day, David begins to ponder if there's something they're not telling us. The pediatrician who does the evening rounds recommends another lab in the morning to compare to Monday's lab work. Another sleepless night. She seem uncomfortable and had a hard time drifting into solid sleep. It took a very long time to put her to sleep that night, only for the nurses to come in at midnight for a weight check! It took David and I an hour and a half to get her back to sleep.
Wednesday: We get a call around noon about Riley's lab. Her white blood cell count and her platelet levels had both dropped. These two levels were normal when she was admitted. One of her infection markers, the CRP level, was high. The concern was something happening in her body, but the doctor's can't figure out what. The super scary moment was when they told us that if things did not improve by Thursday, then we would have to transfer her to Chapel Hill for bone marrow testing to check for things like leukemia. Talk about terrifying. It was hard to not get carried away and terrified. Not that long ago, my baby girl did not beat the odds for heart surgery. The next 24 hours were long. Wednesday afternoon, she had a spinal draw. At 4 am Thursday, they did another blood draw. Doing it this early meant that the results would be back by the time our pediatrician did morning rounds. However, because she'd had so much blood taken from her arm, the veins were shot and they could not draw blood from them. Which meant that it had to be taken from her head.
Thursday: Results from her blood work had IMPROVED!!! While not in the normal range, they had gone up. We get to go home that afternoon.
What this all means: We went Friday to see the pediatrician. All the lab results were negative. They have no idea why Riley's blood went all weird that Wednesday. That CRP level was what tested very high in Hannah's blood when she ran that fever of 106.1 and was admitted back in July. I asked the doctor if it were possible for my girls to have some genetic disposition that might cause this to get out of whack when they get sick. She said "That's a good question, I don't know. You would have to ask an infectious disease doctor." After chatting with her, it was concluded that if this happens to either of the girls again: very sick, funky blood work and unexplainable, then we should go see an infectious disease doctor. In the meantime, we'll go back in two weeks to see the pediatrician and have labs done again to make sure they have returned to the normal range.
Monday: I called to cancel a doctor's appointment for Riley. She was supposed to get a vaccination booster but they won't give a kiddo shots if they've had a fever in the last 24 hours. The nurse asked to me to go ahead and bring Riley in. This was early in the morning. before Riley woke up. Since she had slept through the night, I assumed her fever had broke and thought the appointment was unnecessary but obliged the doctor's office. The appointment was at 2. In between that phone call and her doctor's appointment, Riley literally did nothing but sleep. I tried rousing her around noon to eat, but she had no desire. So we take her in. The doctor does labs and a urine culture but gets negative results. However, she doesn't like Riley's lack of energy and lethargy and recommends that we take her in to the ER because they can run more comprehensive tests than a pediatrician's office. We get to the hospital around 4 pm and are taken back pretty quickly because our pediatrician had called the ER about us. We're admitted around 7 pm for dehydration concerns. Sleep was not much that night, as they had her IV line going off (beeping) every 2 hours to check on her. That meant she was up, and cranky, every 2 hours. Sleep came in 1.5 hour increments for me.
Tuesday: Everything is negative but she's still acting out of sorts; she's not smiling and playing. However, her fever breaks that evening. When we learn that we're not going home on this day, David begins to ponder if there's something they're not telling us. The pediatrician who does the evening rounds recommends another lab in the morning to compare to Monday's lab work. Another sleepless night. She seem uncomfortable and had a hard time drifting into solid sleep. It took a very long time to put her to sleep that night, only for the nurses to come in at midnight for a weight check! It took David and I an hour and a half to get her back to sleep.
Wednesday: We get a call around noon about Riley's lab. Her white blood cell count and her platelet levels had both dropped. These two levels were normal when she was admitted. One of her infection markers, the CRP level, was high. The concern was something happening in her body, but the doctor's can't figure out what. The super scary moment was when they told us that if things did not improve by Thursday, then we would have to transfer her to Chapel Hill for bone marrow testing to check for things like leukemia. Talk about terrifying. It was hard to not get carried away and terrified. Not that long ago, my baby girl did not beat the odds for heart surgery. The next 24 hours were long. Wednesday afternoon, she had a spinal draw. At 4 am Thursday, they did another blood draw. Doing it this early meant that the results would be back by the time our pediatrician did morning rounds. However, because she'd had so much blood taken from her arm, the veins were shot and they could not draw blood from them. Which meant that it had to be taken from her head.
Thursday: Results from her blood work had IMPROVED!!! While not in the normal range, they had gone up. We get to go home that afternoon.
What this all means: We went Friday to see the pediatrician. All the lab results were negative. They have no idea why Riley's blood went all weird that Wednesday. That CRP level was what tested very high in Hannah's blood when she ran that fever of 106.1 and was admitted back in July. I asked the doctor if it were possible for my girls to have some genetic disposition that might cause this to get out of whack when they get sick. She said "That's a good question, I don't know. You would have to ask an infectious disease doctor." After chatting with her, it was concluded that if this happens to either of the girls again: very sick, funky blood work and unexplainable, then we should go see an infectious disease doctor. In the meantime, we'll go back in two weeks to see the pediatrician and have labs done again to make sure they have returned to the normal range.
1 comment:
I am just reading this now! I am glad she is okay!! Crazy situation all around though!
~amanda
Post a Comment