Poor Baby

We have had a rough few days in the King household.

We woke up Wednesday morning like normal. It was a work day for me and Campbell was going to my mom's house for the day. When I got her out of bed she felt warm. I took her temp and it was 101. She was acting normally though and didn't have any other symptoms. I gave her Tylenol and we decided I would go to work and get some things squared away, then call the doctor's office when they opened. By the time the doctor's office opened she had no fever and my mom said she was acting fine, so we decided to just keep an eye on her. She was fine all day, then at 2:00 my mom called and all the sudden her fever had shot up to 102.5. I called the doctor, left work, and met my mom and Campbell there. Our doctor was out for the day, but we saw another of the pediatricians. She thought that with the lack of other symptoms (no congestion, ears looked fine, etc), that it was probably viral. Russ had a bad cold the previous week, so it wasn't so far fetched.

Her fever went up and down Wednesday night and all day Thursday. We gave her Benadryl at night and Tylenol/Motrin around the clock, but even with that combination, she had a constant fever the whole time. When the medication would wear off it would get high - like 103.

On Thursday night we decided to set the alarm to get up every three hours and check her temp and re-medicate her if necessary. We didn't want to take any chances with her fever getting too high. At 1:00 we got up and went in her room. I felt her and she was BURNING. We have a temporal thermometer. It's not the most accurate, but it is a good way to gauge whether she has a temp at all and I need to check it rectally. I just set it on the back of her head and checked. It read 106! We pulled her out of bed and stripped her down and checked it rectally. It was 105.9. We called the doctor, put some cold washcloths on her while we waited and tried to get her to drink some water. She was really lethargic. The doctor called back almost immediately and said we needed to get it down to at least 103 in the next hour or we would need to take her to the ER. We put her in the bath. This woke her up a little and she was not pleased! We were able to get the fever down to the high 102's and keep it there for the rest of the night.

The doctor had us bring her in on Friday morning first thing and she ran some tests. Poor baby had lost more than half a pound in a day and a half. One of the things she mentioned on the phone the night before was a possible UTI. She needed to get a urine sample to test for that. All of Campbell's blood work came back fine, physically the doctor couldn't find anything, and they put a bag on her to collect a urine sample.

Our appointment was at 9:15. We finished with everything but the urine sample. The doctor had us wait for a while, offering her some beverages, to see if she would go. She didn't. We finally left there and came home, with the intention of collecting the sample and taking it back up to the office to be analyzed.

By 2:30 I was borderline a mess. It seems that between the bag taped to Campbell's vag, our constant checking to see if she had "gone" yet, and likely the pain that occurred when she did go, Campbell had made up her mind that not only was she not peeing, but she was not going to eat or drink anything either. We pulled out all the tricks. All her favorite foods, water, and milk were quickly rejected. I offered her juice, which I don't let her have, because I figured she would love the sweetness of it. No thanks. Same with popsicles. And baby food, which I figured would help since it has so much water in it. She has been weaned off the bottle and formula for about a week and a half. Even though it might have caused me physical pain...I did try to give her a bottle of formula. (I promise I wasn't even secretly relieved that she didn't drink it!). Basically this girl was not eating or drinking NOTHING!

At 2:45 I stuck my hand inside her diaper to see if the bag was full at all. To my horror and dismay I felt...wetness. Apparently, after so many hours the adhesive on the top part of the bag had come loose and the pee did what it normally does, soaked the diaper. Praise God there was the slightest bit of pee in the bottom of the bag and when I called the office the nurse said it was enough to get a culture. My fascination with my child's urine on this day is an aspect of motherhood I was not expecting.

We went back to the office, they ran the culture, and sure enough the preliminary results indicate a UTI. I am beyond relieved to know what is going on. The doctor started her on antibiotics last night and her fever has dropped significantly already. She still isn't eating, but she is taking in liquids, so we are feeling better about the risk of dehydration. She is also acting much more like herself.

Next week when we see the doctor to follow up we will talk about some tests that are standard after a child has a UTI. The doctor has recommended we do these to ensure that there are no kidney or bladder abnormalities. More than anything we are so grateful to the Lord for keeping our little girl safe, for waking us up right when we needed to, and for bringing healing to her little body.