Thursday morning (7/12) Colt woke up a little fussy so I took his temperature and it was a little high, but not enough to give him medicine or take him to the doctor. He was acting really fussy for the next couple hours so I thought it was just something I ate the day before. After checking his temp at 11:30 it was 101.7 which I thought was high for a newborn.
I called the doctor's office and one of the nurses asked how old he was and said to give him a luke-warm bath and some Tylenol and see if that made it go down. After about an hour it hadn't so I called and the same nurse said to give him some more meds in a couple hours when they wore off. I did so at around 3:30 and at 4:30 it still was about 101.6 so it hadn't gone down all day and he was still super fussy and had been crying all day.
I called the doctor's office back and spoke to the nurse that we usually see when we go in (different than the one I spoke with previously). She asked what his temp was and I said around 101.7 and she said I should have been told to bring him in immediately instead of just giving him a bath and medicine. She said to bring him in right away so I strapped them in the car and headed in. Tyson's parents happened to be coming down that weekend and we said to meet us at the doctor's office instead of the house. Tyson and them showed up at about the same time which was nice because they took Jayde off our hands.
Doctor Smith said that it could be a few things: meningitis, a UTI, or some type of other virus. He needed to get a spinal tap and a catheter, as well as blood drawn to see what his white blood count was, and to figure out what it was. She said we wouldn't want to be in there for those things because it was pretty traumatic, so Tyson and I waited in the hall while we heard him screaming and looked up information on our phones and praying it wasn't meningitis.
After all that was done we took him to the hospital and got him hooked up to an IV to give him fluids because at this point he was super pale. They hooked up three cords to his chest to monitor his breathing etc, and one to his foot. Tyson and his dad gave him a blessing that said he would be ok, and the waiting game started.
That first night was really rough because he didn't want to sleep anywhere but next to me in that uncomfortable hospital bed. It was difficult to swaddle and nurse him with all those cords attached to his little body. They would constantly beep if they were tweaked/bent a little bit so it kept waking us up. He was given fluids as well as antibiotics in case it was meningitis and we just waited for the results while Tyson went home to be there for Jayde.
The next day his coloring was much better but anytime I would un-swaddle him for the nurses to check on him he would immediately start crying. Even though he was on constant fever medicine it was still staying really high. During the day it went down for a couple of hours so they tried not giving his medicine to see if it stayed down, and it just kept spiking back up which was concerning.
It was a blessing having Tyson's parents there to watch Jayde while he worked and I was at the hospital. I'm sure she had a blast! Teri came to the hospital for a couple hours that morning so I could quickly go home and shower while Colt was asleep.
The tests came back and said that his white blood count was low which ruled out bacterial viruses, and meningitis was also negative which we were very excited about! We were still waiting on if it was a UTI or some other type of virus. They were sent up to Salt Lake to determine to find out, since they could do more in-depth testing up there.
The second night there was much better! He was better enough to slept in his little crib they had in our room which was a blessing since it allowed me to sleep also. The monitors didn't constantly beep like the first night, and he was just less irritable. Throughout the night his temperature wasn't very constant from what I remember, but when we woke up in the morning it started to stay down while on the medicine. I also became a pro at swaddling a baby while hooked to an IV.
The tests came back negative for UTI, but positive for the Enterovirus. It's just a virus you get from someone else and is very contagious until their fever is gone. Our doctor said her 13 year old daughter got it, and had her fever afterward for a long time. I was nervous that Jayde would catch it, but luckily his fever went away after just a few days.
Tyson took Jayde to her swim lesson that morning and sadly she screamed the whole time. I guess she just wanted to have me there. I'm sure that traumatized Tyson more than it did her. When he told me how she did he said, "Let's just say she did not earn her ice-cream this morning!". Poor things!!
We were finally released from the hospital that Saturday morning and let's just say I was so glad this whole ordeal was all over and we were able to finally go home! Unhooking him from all those machines made me so happy, and it was so nice to be able to snuggle and nurse him at home without all the cords in the way.
2 comments:
So glad he is ok!! Babies in the hospital is so hard. Looks like you handled it like a pro!!
It is so scary and awful to have your kids in the hospital. I'm glad he is ok!!!
Post a Comment