Sunday, January 07, 2007

Trauma


What do you call 4+ hours spent in the ER on Saturday night/early Sunday morning, holding your toddler who has a fever of 104.4, trying to get her to sleep in your arms under the horrendous flourescent lights that only an ER can have, holding her down while they do chest x-rays, stick her with IV needles and draw blood for tests, repeatedly take her temperature (the fun way because they can't find an ear thermometer), tape a piddle pack on her to collect urine but later cathetize her twice because they need to do a urinalysis? I call it trauma, for us and for Kate, and it's how we spent last night. I had to leave the room for most of the procedures because I was too much of a wreck listening to her cry. It's a terrible, heart-wrenching thing to hear your baby scream 'mama' and 'bye-bye' while hospital staff try to 'help' her.


Kate came down with a fever sometime on Friday, but seemed to get better for a bit on Saturday. Then her fever spiked and TriCare sent us to the ER. Kate's getting better, we think, but she still has a fever and isn't quite right. This time she is able to keep food and liquid down, but she's hardly eating anything besides milk. They still don't know what is wrong with her, even with all those stupid tests, but they think it might be a UTI. We'll find out in a couple of days.
Hope y'all had a better weekend.

7 comments:

Lucy said...

So sorry to hear that Kate is sick. I hope she gets better soon.

Andrea and Ben said...

So sorry to hear Kate isn't feeling well. The ER sucks. Everyone is cranky (for obvious reasons, they are in the ER) and it smells. I will do a wellness dance for her in some of my plentiful spare time......I need a job :0)

Jen said...

The ER does suck! It's stinky and uncomfortable. I hope we will not be visiting it again anytime soon.

Andrea, you should be a personal shopper - you would be good at it!!

Andrea and Ben said...

they do that here?? I am on it!!

Anonymous said...

Jen,
Sorry to hear Kate is so sick! I know what you are talking about. I had to take Caitlyn when she was 6 weeks old to the ER and they ran the same tests on her. I was in tears, couldn't handle them sticking her with needles all over and she was screaming! It is miserable. Hope Kate gets better soon!!!

Heather

Anonymous said...

I was surprised to see you use y'all in your blog AND I just have to say you have your camera with you in places I would never think to take a picture!! I'm working on baby #4 and I'll never have some of the pictures you have! Hope Kate feels better really soon!

Jen said...

The photo of Kate was taken at home...we brought the camera to the ER when we went in Oregon, but this time it was late at night and more traumatic. She seems to be getting better now, poor kid.