trip to children's hospital er

this weekend it was azalea's turn to get sick. the sickest she's ever been and i would be lying if i didn't say these have been some of the hardest parenting days yet. friday night she fell asleep in my arms very quickly, which is always a sign that she is coming down with something. thatcher and i watched a movie and she woke up whimpering a couple times. we took her temperature around 11pm and it was 101. she went back to sleep pretty easily. 

she woke up at 4am and we took her temp again, still around 101. we gave her some infant pain reliever and she went back to sleep for about an hour. she woke up again at 5:30 crying, so i took her out to the living room and we slept together on the couch for another couple hours. i use the word "sleep" loosely. took her temp again, 102 this time. we spent most of the day trading off laying on the couch with her asleep on us. it was the only way she would sleep.

i was actually sort of enjoying all the snuggles (although obviously i would prefer she were healthy). but then out of no where, she started screaming and crying. a lot. we were pretty worried because it is very unlike her and she seemed to be screaming in pain. we called the nurses line and they said we should take her to the emergency room at children's hospital (because our regular walk-in clinic was already closed for the day). so, off to the hospital we went. she totally perked up in the car, which made us question our decision for a second, but she was still very feverish, so we continued on.

luckily it was not very busy in the er, and we were seen pretty fast. they took her temp - up to 103 at this point and she was visibly uncomfortable. the doctor checked her ears and throat. azalea got herself so worked up over it that she threw up all over me. if that's not motherhood, then i don't know what is. :) it was all down my shirt...basically everywhere. i cleaned myself up as best i could and wore my shirt the rest of the time there. 

the doctor said her ears and throat looked fine (not what i was expecting to hear), so they wanted to do a blood test and a urine test...which required an iv and a catheter. poor girl! :( needless to say, she was not happy with the nurses who took the samples. we sat in the room for 2-2.5 hours. a preliminary test showed that her white blood cell count was high which means she is liking fighting an infection, so they wanted to get her going on antibiotics right away. i was happy about that. they explained that we should take her into the walk-in clinic for more antibiotics on sunday and they will hopefully have the test results on monday. if they pin point what the infection is, we will be 2 days ahead of the game on antibiotics.

this picture seriously makes me laugh. she looks so peaceful. she ripped those glasses off about 2 seconds later.

after her dose of antibiotics, she seemed to perk up. they thought she looked pretty good, so they sent us home. it was another rough night. she woke up many times and we gave her infant pain reliever every 4 hours to keep her fever down. at one point it was up to 103 again. scary for this mama! she spent different parts of the night in her crib, on the couch with me, and in our bed. 

sunday morning she seemed to be feeling a little better. she took a short nap in her crib and crawled around and played with her toys. we took her to the walk-in clinic expecting to get antibiotics there, but it went a little differently. her fever was down to 101 and her white blood cell count was also down (which is good). the doctor said after 24 hours there is no evidence of bacteria in her tests, but they will continue to watch. she thought writing a prescription for an antibiotic was the way to go. 

sunday afternoon azalea seemed to get worse again. very fussy, very tired (took a 2+ hour nap). her fever went between 101 and 103 all afternoon. we kept up the pain reliever in addition to the antibiotic. i'm hoping she will get some relief soon. it's so hard to see her so uncomfortable. it's been a long weekend. i had to miss a concert on saturday night, which is not a big deal, but still a bummer. she is down for the night and i'm hoping she sleeps better than the last two nights, but i won't hold my breath. at the same time, i'm trying to be thankful that she is a generally healthy girl and this will all hopefully pass soon.