All nighter...at the hospital
It's 5AM on a Sunday morning and I am awake. Why you ask? No, I am not up early. I have been up all night. So has Patti. Story...
I went up to bed last night around midnight. Patti was awake with Emerson and she said he had been throwing up since about 7. I took him for a while and after he fed around 12:30, he immediately threw up everything. Patti took his temperature and he had a fever of around 101.3. Nothing to panic about but not great either considering he is 2 months old...today...he is exactly two months old on the 26th.
So Patti called a 24 hour nurse service that our pediatric office has and they said that with any baby under 3 months old with a fever above 101 you are required to take them in right away. Required by whom I don't know. Anyway, we had the choice of Mass General of Children's Hospital. So at 1:30AM, with a friend who we called to come over to stay with the other two, we got in the car and off we went.
As soon as I walked in I knew it was going to be trouble. Last time we were there the waiting room had like 2 other families and it took a couple of hours. Tonight, at 2AM, it was packed. Kids of all ages and families of all kind. The assessment nurse took his temp which was still up and gave him some Tylenol. Then we were sent into the packed waiting room to wait. And we waited.
After about 30 minutes a clerk type person called us to fill out the paperwork and give our healthcare information. She happened to be from the same town we live in so she told us of a smaller, quieter, more private waiting room within the treatment area. So we had a little room all to ourselves. And we waited.
At 4:30 I realized I had to come home so our friend, Kathy, didn't have to get both kids up, dressed and fed. She would have done it but with two little kids of her own she has enough to do. So I left Patti and a sleeping Emerson, who, by the way, had slept the entire time we were there, at the hospital and came home. So here I am now, 5:15, I am freshly showered and waiting for the pitter patter of little children from the second floor so I can get them dressed and head back to the hospital to get Patti when the baby is seen.
I am not sure if there will be a nap in my day so it might be a 40 hour wake period. I am interested to see what it does to my mental condition, I never thought it could be worse but I'll see tonight.
The joy of being a parent never ends.
9:00AM
Things did not go like I thought they would. At 5:45AM Patti called from the hospital and said the doctor was a little concerned with the fever. He said with children that young they need to be extremely careful because of the severe impact something, like meningitis, can have on a child if untreated. So they decided to take blood, a urine sample and do a spinal tap. Blood and pee I am fine with, sticking a needle in the back of a 2 month old kind of bugs me. Just the word "Spinal Tap" sounds so drastic. I start to worry.
Since this was a fairly serious thing to do I guess the doctor had to confer with other doctors. So around 7:00 they took Emerson and while poking him with thin pieces of metal they also put in an IV. When Patti got him back shortly after 7 he was wrapped up so she didn't know they put in the IV. At 7:30 the doctor came in to check on him and unwrapped him and she saw the baby's arm all tapped up with an IV coming out. It was unsettling and I asked her to email me a picture of it. Not all that bad but not pretty. I really start to worry.
Around 8 they started treating him with antibiotics and fluids through the IV. He fed during the morning but for the most part had been sleeping. We are waiting for the lab results. I am sick to my stomach with worry. I tell Emily that Emerson is sick. She offers to give him her favorite purple Care Bear stuffed animal. Ethan runs around the house like a zombie looking for brains screaming and destroying things. Life goes on.
At 9 she called me and said the tests came back and everything looks fine. They have to do a culture which will take 24 hours but so far so good. They are going to keep him most of today to make sure he is holding his food down and his temperature, which is still high, gets back to a more safe zone. I start to worry less, much less.
A good friend called to see how Emerson was and asked if Emily could come over to play with her son. She said she would keep her own son, who Emily plays with all the time, company but I know she offered to help me out. She said she would keep Emily for the day and had planned on going hiking with the kids. It's a big help because while Ethan is a handful, I am exhausted and it's much easier to keep a handle on one kid. I am grateful for the offer.
Patti will stay with the boy at the hospital and I'll get them later today when the doc says it's ok. While driving to Children's at 1:30 we came across a fresh accident right off the Arborway in Brookline. All the lights were out for some reason and I guess two cars didn't realize it. They slammed into each other pretty bad. The cops just started to arrive and people were walking around dazed. It was strange.
Ethan says hi.