When my husband came home on Thursday I announced that Babs was sick. He asked why I thought that? "Because I know" was the answer.
We took turns that night holding her, worried about the heat radiating off her small body, and wincing each time she made the high pitched squeaking infant-in-pain cry. About 7:30 Friday morning I realized that a) she was still hot even after some Tylenol and b) she was not eating well. By 8 we were at the local emergency room.
A dose of Motrin from the nurse brought her temperature back down, and marked the return of her happy, engaging personality. But a temperature of 102.7 is worrisome for a 3-month old, so they ran some tests. They did some blood work, took some urine, and did a chest x-ray. And everything came back negative. Her white blood cell count was super high, so she was clearly fighting off something. As the Motrin wore off, her temperature crept up again, again into the 102 range. So they admitted her.
That night when her temperature found it's way to 102+ again (between Motrin cycles), they did a spinal tap to check for meningitis. And following procedure, they started her on antibiotics, because you just don't want to take any chances.
She continued to have a fever into Saturday, then by Saturday afternoon it was gone. But we had already done the spinal tap, so we had to wait for the results, which came back Monday morning. (It's a 48-hour test.) It was a long 36 hours (the time from when her fever was gone and we could go home).
I was extraordinarily grateful to have doctors and medicine to help my baby through a pretty nerve wracking few days. But I was also really grateful to come home.
I had a lot of random thoughts from my time there, because there was lots of time to think. I'll share those later. For now I'm just grateful that we're home, and every one is well. (Because, my husband thought to give Primus some allergy medicine, and her cough is gone too!) That's a serious blessing.
