WHAT a weekend. whew!

Life has given me so many struggles... so many twists and turns, but this past weekend was one of the most terrifying, scariest, HORRIBLE feeling I have had in FOREVER!

My daughter, the light of my life, my biggest pride and joy, whose smile makes me smile at any time, was sick. And not just runny nose sick. No, this went to a whole new level.

Saturday night, we were getting ready for bed... she felt warm. Hmm... took her temp. 103.7. What? Seriously? OMG. So I called her dr. and gave her some tylenol. The dr. said to not worry about it unless she seemed to be acting weird. well, okay.

Sunday morning, she woke up. Her temp was 102. More tylenol. All she wanted to do was sleep. And stare into space. Fever still there, around 11:30 we decided to take her to the ER. We got there and they took her temp - still over 101 - and blood pressure, and heart rate, oxygen levels. Give her some motrin. Wait about 5 minutes... they bring her to the back. We get put into a room in the pediatric unit of the ER. cool. The hospital I normally would have went to, doesn't have something like this. Geared towards children and making kids more comfortable. Anyways, they monitored her for a while and then we saw the dr. He wants to do a catheter. To check for a UTI. OUCH.

The nurse came in and tried, couldn't get it in. Meanwhile, my daughter is laying on this bed, screaming at the top of her lungs. Her face is red and she is looking at me. Oh no. I feel some tears coming on... My poor baby. The nurse called the dr. in. He tries. Can't do it. More pain and suffering for my child. So they "bag her". (Put a bag over her "privates" and wait for her to pee). I can deal with that. WHY didn't you just do that FIRST!?

Dr. comes back in. Still no pee. Oh, maybe this is why. Waiting for her to actually pee could take a while. He said they wanted to take blood since they weren't able to do the catheter. *sob* More tears for my baby. She did NOT like it. But they got the blood. Blood results came back okay. They sent out some more blood for a 48 hour culture. Dr. says we can go home. Still no pee. But he's not going to have us there forever waiting. 7pm. We are discharged and taking off monitors. She pees! oh good. so now we wait for half hour for the results. Comes back perfect. hmm... then what is wrong with my baby!?

The dr. said it was a viral infection. Nothing we can do about it except watch her. So he sent us home and told us to give her some more motrin as soon as we got home (she still had a fever!). So we got home around 8pm and gave her the motrin. She took it okay. We take her outside and she proceeds to spit up. All her medicine. Gone. So we wait a couple more hours and give her some tylenol. She throws that up too. oh jeez. So I called her dr. and let her know what was going on. Her temp is still over 101. Her dr. said to put her to bed. Tylenol and motrin are "to make her comfortable" "NOT to bring down her fever". Oh joy. Put her to bed.

5:30am she wakes up. Weird. She normally sleeps until at LEAST 8am. Go in there to check on her, rub her back, give back her paci. Diaper is wet. So I take her out of bed and she is BURNING UP! Change her diaper and take her temp. Do a double take. 105.4. ONE OH FIVE POINT FOUR. OMG. Call Dustin, and tell him. Give her some tylenol. We are going back to ER right away.

We got the the er in record time (not because of speeding, but leaving the house instantly) at 6am. We sat in the waiting room for about 20 minutes before they called us in the check her vitals. Her temp was down to 101.7. PHEW! At least it wasn't 105 anymore. They gave her some more motrin, which she gagged on, but kept down. Waited in the waiting room over FOUR hours before they finally got us into the ER. They were BUSY.

We sat around in the er room for about 2 hours before a nurse even came to check on us, but at least it was better than the waiting room. The rest of the day is kind of a blur, but at some point, they decided to give her an IV for fluids (She wasn't drinking or eating ANYTHING), and they took some more blood. Blood work came back okay still... (OH! And she didn't even CRY or WHINE when they did the IV! She was SUCH a good girl!) They decided that they were keeping her overnight for observation. This was partly because of me. I was so nervous to bring her home and have her fever spike again, and partly because she needed the fluids.

They moved us to a room and took her vitals in the pediatrics dept. They took her temp under her arm. 98.6. Perfect. I don't believe it. She feels warm. I asked them to take it rectally, and they came back about 15-20 minutes later and it was 101.7. What a freaking difference. So they gave her some more meds. Dr. came in to see her and says everything seems ok. They will keep her on the IV overnight. Got to sleep around 11pm. I slept like a rock throughout the night, and when I woke up in the morning, Dustin said she got up at least every hour, sometimes every 15-20 minutes. I didn't hear a thing. I was SOOO exhausted. I felt bad then, because he had to keep getting up with her, which meant he was exhausted as well.

Anyways, her temp is still over 101. The dr. came in and said as soon as her 48 hour blood cultures came back, we could go home. She was still not drinking anything, and barely eating, but it was better than the day before. But the blood results were supposed to come in around 2pm. 2pm rolls around, still has a fever and no results. Now they say between 4 and 5. More waiting. Samantha slept pretty much the entire day. 4pm comes around. Still no results. 5pm comes around and STILL no results. Now they say "soon". 7pm comes around and YAY! Her blood cultures came back negative. Good. Now we can go home. So they came and took her vitals one last time. Her temp was 98.8. Under the arm again. I still say she feels warm, but since they are sending us home, I'll just wait and take it myself. So we went home. As soon as we got home (about half hour after they took her temp) it was 101.5. Seriously? ugh! So I gave her some tylenol and luckily, she kept it down.

Wednesday morning I called into work and Samantha didn't wake up until 10am. She woke up happy and with NO FEVER!!! YIPPPPEEEEEEE!!!!! She slept quite a bit throughout the day and we notice her rash is spreading to her face/head and getting worse. Ugh. Why can't my baby catch a break!? Made a dr. appt for today (Thursday).

I will let you all know what the dr. says after her appointment. But she is still fever free today. YAY!