Baby Comes First

Today was the big I Heart Faces Photo Walk that I've been planning to go on. I'm bummed that I wasn't able to go. The sunshine and blue skies were perfect for today's adventure in downtown Austin.

Instead of taking pictures in town with my nice digital camera and fancy lenses, I was taking them inside of a hospital - on my iPhone. They weren't fun pictures, either. They were of a sick little boy that had us all very worried.

Thursday I had to take my daughter in to the doctor for a digestive issue (we're trying to figure out if or what she's allergic to) and a well visit for my 14 month old. I was going to allow them to give the baby some shots (mainly Pertussis since it went around in our area this past Spring and we had a friend who's kids were exposed at public school). It was a 'God thing' that the doctor's office ran out of vaccine on the kid just before us. I'm glad they didn't have them, because his immune system wouldn't have been able to take it.

That night, the baby came down with a fever. I wondered if he caught something at the doctor's office... but then, we had all been off and on sick with respiratory allergy stuff since we had our house sprayed a few weeks back. I didn't connect baby's fever to the poison in the house until this hospital visit. The ER doctor never did confirm that the chemicals caused it, but he did say that it was very plausible that the pesticide could have been a culprit for our need for asthma and antihistamines - even the baby's recent fever and pneumonia. It all seems very strange that we were the picture of health for many months and all of us started getting sick after having the house sprayed for bugs.

Baby K had a fever all day Friday, but I don't think it got over 101. I figured (since it also accompanied a bad diaper rash and he had been well up until that day) that he was teething. He had no nasal or respiratory symptoms to speak of. By last night, though, he was really not acting himself. He was lethargic. We call the boy Bam Bam because he is always on the move and banging in to things and hitting them - bouncing back like he's made of rubber. Not last night. He was clingy, limp, red-eyed, tired and ONLY wanted to nurse. My little "night owl" went to bed earlier than usual, too. All through the night he refused to nurse (very unusual for my "ninny baby") and ended up with a 102.8 fever at 2:30-something this morning.


When we awoke after fitful and feverish sleep, and he still wasn't interested in nursing, I was worried that he might have Strep. They say that if a baby's throat hurts really bad, they will refuse to eat - even if they enjoy the comfort of nursing. I was also worried that he was dehydrating because he seemed to have even less energy than before. His lips looked pale.

It was time to go.



100$ and 8 hours later, we are home again.

Even with battle scars where they did their diagnostic tests, he looks better. His lips are pink and he's walking around and talking. I'm trying to forget the image of clear fluid leaking out of his curved spine through a 3 inch needle so they could test him for meningitis. [I won't be cooking dinner tonight.] I'm quite sure there would have been much nicer images today at the Photo Walk to fill my mind with than that. The poor child had two pricks for his IV, three people holding him down for the spinal tap, and at least 5 different deeply probing sticks to get the fluid out of his back - not to mention two shots full of numbing meds and a tranquilizer after the fourth failed attempt. All in the name of medical 'practice'.

They sent us home with a pneumonia diagnosis... early stages and only one lung. I'm glad to know he doesn't have strep or meningitis... but I'm sure he will now be thoroughly paranoid of hospitals for the rest of his natural born life.

I wouldn't blame him if he grew up and became a doctor just so he could stick other people with needles to get them back.