The past 2 months have been rough for Baby Skye. Before Christmas she started coughing a lot. One night she even made herself throw up on her clothes and ended up in the sink...
Turns out Skye has bronchiolitis with an ear infection and puss on her throat. Dr. Tosto said she would do a chest xray to see if it's turned into pneumonia yet, but since she has an ear infection we're going to put her on antibiotics and it's the same treatment for pneumonia. So we don't have to expose her to the radiation. Bronchiolitis can be caused by RSV or any cold. They used to always test to see if is RSV, but now they don't do that unless necessary.
Then a few weeks ago Skye started acting really sick. First, she threw up right after eating while in my bed... like a LOT. That same morning Siena had a potty accident, then Jaide accidentally stepped in the pee so I put them both in the shower. Then Scarlett was feeling left out cause Skye, Siena and Jaide were in the shower. So before 9am all four of my girls were in the shower while I got to clean up all the fluids.
Well Skye continued to throw up one or two times a day. She had a little fever the first day, but never after that. And she was acting sick:
Finally on Monday morning (after 6 days of throwing up) I called the doctor and got her in. The doctor said everything looked great, but we should do a catheter and test for a UTI cause sometimes the infection can cause vomiting. After her test (and a second dose of flu shot, poor girl) the results came back: she did have a UTI. They gave me antibiotics and sent us home.
The rest of that day Skye threw up every time I fed her - even though she would only nurse for a minute. By 5pm I realized she hadn't peed all day. I called the nurse and they said if it was more than 8 hours without a wet diaper that I needed to take her to the children's ER at St. Joe's. Right after that Skye ate and actually kept it down. So we decided to wait and hour and see if she would pee. We got the girls to bed and then Skye threw up a ton. That was the last straw. It was time to take her in, poor thing.
Luckily we didn't have to wait very long. We got right back to a room. The doctor came in (with a cute prego belly) and said she was concerned that Skye was dehydrated. Skye kept crying as she looked her over, but she didn't have any tears. So the doctor said we would get her an IV for fluids, zofran and antibiotic.
First was the IV. Because she was so dehydrated her veins were difficult. The first nurse came in and poked her 2 times. They can only try twice before they have to get a different nurse (I think that's pretty standard protocol.) But one poke doesn't mean one small poke, they put it in and dig around for the vein - for several minutes. Skye was SCREAMING and she even started throwing up again while they were digging, trying to get the IV started. She didn't have anything in her tummy, only stomach bile. A second nurse came in and only tried once before she realized she couldn't get the IV started. They gave Skye a little break. They gave her oral dissolvable Zofran in hopes that she could stop throwing up and I could nurse her to help her veins. The taste of the medication made her throw up again!!! She was so miserable (and so was I). Finally the NICU nurses arrived. They turned off the light then used this little red flashlight to shine under her skin (like in her hand, foot, etc) and they looked around all her body to see what veins were the best. They tried and couldn't get it. Then they tried again and finally got the IV!!!! What a rough hour! The nurses said they felt sooo bad and Skye kept turning to them and giving them sad eyes (she really did!)
They started Skye's fluids and gave her the Zofran. They told me to wait at least 30 min before nursing her. I picked her up and wrapped her in a blanket and she just fell asleep. Poor thing was so exhausted. We snuggled for a little bit then I nursed her and she kept it down.
The rest of that day Skye threw up every time I fed her - even though she would only nurse for a minute. By 5pm I realized she hadn't peed all day. I called the nurse and they said if it was more than 8 hours without a wet diaper that I needed to take her to the children's ER at St. Joe's. Right after that Skye ate and actually kept it down. So we decided to wait and hour and see if she would pee. We got the girls to bed and then Skye threw up a ton. That was the last straw. It was time to take her in, poor thing.
Luckily we didn't have to wait very long. We got right back to a room. The doctor came in (with a cute prego belly) and said she was concerned that Skye was dehydrated. Skye kept crying as she looked her over, but she didn't have any tears. So the doctor said we would get her an IV for fluids, zofran and antibiotic.
First was the IV. Because she was so dehydrated her veins were difficult. The first nurse came in and poked her 2 times. They can only try twice before they have to get a different nurse (I think that's pretty standard protocol.) But one poke doesn't mean one small poke, they put it in and dig around for the vein - for several minutes. Skye was SCREAMING and she even started throwing up again while they were digging, trying to get the IV started. She didn't have anything in her tummy, only stomach bile. A second nurse came in and only tried once before she realized she couldn't get the IV started. They gave Skye a little break. They gave her oral dissolvable Zofran in hopes that she could stop throwing up and I could nurse her to help her veins. The taste of the medication made her throw up again!!! She was so miserable (and so was I). Finally the NICU nurses arrived. They turned off the light then used this little red flashlight to shine under her skin (like in her hand, foot, etc) and they looked around all her body to see what veins were the best. They tried and couldn't get it. Then they tried again and finally got the IV!!!! What a rough hour! The nurses said they felt sooo bad and Skye kept turning to them and giving them sad eyes (she really did!)
While they were poking and digging around her little arms, I felt so helpless. I just wanted a priesthood blessing for my sweet baby. I just wished that I was in UT so I could just ask and several faithful Melchizedek Priesthood holders working in the hospital would just appear when I needed them. I wondered if I needed Jake to find a babysitter and come down to the ER (it was 11:30pm and we were a good 20 min away). I wondered if it was going to be one of those stories where the missionaries just happened to be at the ER right then. My mind was running through all these scenarios (while they were digging around in her arm as she was screaming). Then I had this peaceful feeling come over me. Yes, the priesthood is wonderful, and I'm so grateful to have the power and blessings that come from it. But Heavenly Father hears moms prayers too. He was aware of my little baby and He knew the desires of my heart. I just knew that He was listening, so I poured my heart out and asked to help the nurses be guided in there efforts to start her vein. I'm grateful for the power of prayer and for a loving Heavenly Father who is so aware of us and who is involved in the details of our lives.
After Skye started perking up they took us over to the xray area. They wanted to make sure nothing else was going on in her tummy causing all the vomit (besides the UTI). The xray technician said it's been a while since he's had a baby that small. He held her all stretched out and just had them do the xray while he was holding her. Results came back and showed everything looked normal. There was a lot of gas trapped in her stomach, but that was from all the screaming earlier.
It took about 3 hours to get all her fluids in her system. I turned the lights off and nursed her laying down and we took a little nap. Then she kept sleeping while I watched some shows on Netflix on my phone. She woke up a few times and was playing with her IV - so she got socked! (it was a clean sock, don't worry)
The nurses kept coming in and telling me she is a gerber baby (look at those cheeks!) We finally got released. They sent us home with her IV still in her arm. They said since it was so hard to get started, they wanted to leave it in til we knew she was done throwing up for sure. They told me that they can only do that with "reliable families" (haha, I fooled them!) Thank goodness she was wearing big jammies that fit over all the stuff taped to her arm.
While I was inside the ER we got a few inches of snow. It was really slick and no traffic on the road. So I called my mom (woke her up on the eve of her bday) and she talked to me the whole drive home to make sure we were safe and didn't slide off the road.
The next morning I went to see our pediatrician. We both agreed that she will not get as dehydrated as she was the day before and it would be fine to take out her IV line. Later that day Skye did throw up one more time but Dr Tosto just gave us some liquid Zofran to stay on top of it. As the antibiotics worked she got progressively better. It took 2 days to really rehydrate her. About a week later she was back to being our sweet baby Skye (sleeping through the night, eating, smiling, etc). The antibiotics hurt her poor bum. But we will take a poor, raw bum over a sick baby.
Jake and I went off sugar and caffeine the week before. What bad timing! I was sooooo tired! Jake worked from home the day after the ER to help keep the twirls preoccupied so I could catch up on some sleep. But man, I sure miss my Diet Pepsi Wild Cherry!
2 comments:
So glad the baby is better! Much love Grandma
This blog made me cry; literally I had tears to think what this little baby had to go through. We are so glad she is feeling better.
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