Letters to Lyla and Lottie

Fear.  That’s the only word to describe May 22nd.  My Lottie girl had had a slight fever on and off since Friday night.  It was low-grade but I just knew something wasn’t right.  I kept saying that she wasn’t okay, but I just kept hoping she’d get better.  Sunday afternoon I just knew things weren’t okay.  Her eyes didn’t look right and they had a little red rim around them.  She was also groaning in a way I’d never heard a baby groan.  I kept taking her temperature on the three different thermometers we have and kept getting various readings.  It was everywhere from 99 to 101.  I finally called the on call doctor.  It happened to be our doctor, Dr. Miller!  What a relief. I told her Lottie’s symptoms.  She stated that she needed a better definitive on Lottie’s temperature and asked if we could get a rectal.  I said that I’d send Todd to the store to buy one but instead she said she’d just run down to our house with hers.  What a great doctor! She’s a family friend.  She showed up  minutes later and I was on pins and needles.  She did the rectal.  It seemed like the numbers on that thermometer moved at a snail’s pace.  Just when I’d think it was done, the number would continue to climb.  Dr. Miller had just said anything above 100.4 required hospitalization.  That’s when the thermometer finally beeped indicating it was done.  It rested exactly on 100.4.  I felt like I was going to puke.  Dr. Miller also commented on the groaning and said she didn’t  like that at all.  SO she explained the hospitalization procedure and prepped me for what was to come.  I asked if I had time to change and grab a bag, she said yes but time for nothing else.  My ears were ringing with what she had just said….IV (okay), blood draw (okay I guess), needle going into the spine to draw out spinal fluid?  Not okay.  I went to Lyla’s room to tell Todd (he was entertaining Lyla), choking back tears.  We decided I’d take her in and Todd would come once he found somebody to watch Lyla.  I called my nursing crew.  Dr. Miller was just going to follow me into the hospital.  When I got to med surge, there was paperwork for me to fill out, so Dr. Miller asked if she could just take Lottie and get started while I completed the paperwork.  I said yes but was completely freaked at 1) the idea of her getting poked when I wasn’t here and 2) the fact that Dr. Miller felt everything was so very urgent. 

I raced through the paperwork and ran to where they said my baby was.  I just had to follow the cries.  I was praying they hadn’t done anything too bad yet.  I wanted to be there.  I was relieved that she was just mad at them taking a temp reading under her armpit.  That’s my girl.  SO my mom and Jenny met me there and Jenny decided that she wanted to do the catheter and IV.  After looking over Lottie’s veins, Jenny looked discouraged and said that they were pretty poor.  She kept going back to her head and saying she had some good ones there.  She said that head IVs aren’t any more painful than ones elsewhere but that they don’t do them very often because it freaks the parents out.  Jenny said, “it would be our best bet and probably less painful”.  I told her to do it.  She kept asking if I was sure and if I wanted to leave.  I said firmly,  DO IT.  I refused to leave because I wanted to be right near her face, rubbing her and singing to her.  It was all I could do.  SO that’s what I did.  I watched my sister shove a needle in my baby’s head and take out vials of blood, all the while singing hush little baby while she screamed bloody murder.  Jenny is amazing and only had to poke her once.  What a relief.  Next came the catheter.  Again, she had poor visibility.  It took what seemed like a million prods before she got it in.  Right then she pee’d and they got enough urine to test it.  Again, what a relief.   We went over possible scenarios and her symptoms again and again with Dr. Miller.  I BEGGED, and I mean BEGGED Dr. Miller to hold off on the spinal until we got the other test results.  Once we got talking I got thinking how bad her pee had been smelling.  My mom had even remarked about it but I just thought that was they way her pee smelled.  I felt stupid for not knowing but also convicted that that’s what it had to be.  I asked Dr. Miller to hold off only if it wasn’t likely to cause greater harm.  She said she didn’t want to, but would just for me  

From there it became a giant waiting game.  We would have preliminary test results tomorrow afternoon at the earliest and these tests would only tell us what it was likely to be, or not likely to be.  The full tests would take 48 hours from Monday morning.  I was cursing living in a small town where labs had to be curried to St. George.  We were told we could not even consider going home until the results were in so we knew we had a least 2 days of IVs and hourly temperature readings.  That night, Lottie’s temperature spiked to 101.  The nurses seemed stressed and called Dr. Miller who told them to give her some Tylenol.  That was the most scared I have ever been.  Literally.  We had no answers, and things were getting worse.  My mind went to the worst place possible and I found myself sobbing powerlessly to God to please spare my precious baby.  I asked the nurse if I needed to prepare.  She said “I don’t think so”.  Now it seems drastic that my mind went to that place but before we had any answers, I just didn’t know how bad this was.  Todd and Kenton gave Lottie a blessing and we removed this little beanie she had to keep her IV in place.  After that her temperature dropped to 99.  I felt so much peace then.  The whole night I sat up and held Lottie.  They were giving her fluids in an IV and checking her temperature hourly.  Lottie just groaned and slept nuzzled in between my boobs the whole night.  My mom remarked how they served as her little pillow.

Monday afternoon we got the news that it was likely a UTI.  Her urine culture had grew out ecoli.  I of course started blaming myself for not wiping good enough or from  front to back but Dr. Miller said it’s actually very common and could be an anatomy issue.  We would have to wait until the full results were in to know what kind of IV antibiotics would kill the infection but that they were going to start antibiotics now and see how she did. Within a few hours her temperature was completely gone and did not return.  This too pointed to the likelihood that it was a UTI.  I felt so much relief that it was that and not something worse.  We had also evaded a spinal.  Oh what gratitude I had for my sweet baby. 

We spent 2 nights and 3 days there with IV antibiotics.  I laid in that hospital bed the entire time and just tried to love on my Lovie.  She did such a good job and I tried to tell myself she wouldn’t be screwed up for this unfair suffering she was asked to endure.  Lottie just slept mostly buried on my chest.  She ate good the whole time which was also a comfort.  Seeing my little one with an IV in her head was a brutal pain, but at least It wasn’t hurting her.  I felt like we got through the experience relatively unscathed. 

Tuesday afternoon the full test was back and it was definitely a UTI.  We had a prescription called in that would likely kill the bacteria.  I guess it was a pretty strong bacteria.  Lottie had to take oral antibiotics for 2 weeks and then get some tests of her ureter's and bladder.  The test required another catheter that was again very painful for her (and me for that matter) but the test found that she didn’t have any anatomy issues which was another blessing.  She hasn’t had another temperature since. 

I can’t tell you how grateful I am that it was as minor as it ended up being.  Thank goodness for family and blessings.  I learned to never take health for granted.