Thursday, August 25, 2011

Not the weekend we were planning . . .

We were all set to enjoy the weekend of August 13th, our first weekend home in four weeks!  The biggest thing on our agenda was Chloe Lake's 2nd Birthday . . a Minnie Mouse themed party to which Katie talked about all week.

The party was at four, so at three we started getting everyone ready.  After waking Caroline up and feeding her a bottle, David noticed that there was something wrong with our youngest.  Instead of talking normal breaths, she was grunting in short pants instead of taking air all the way in.  I immediately pulled up her shirt to see if she was struggling to breath (if her ribs were showing), but she looked fine and even gave me a smile.  Despite that, the sound was making us nervous and we decided that Dave should head out to KidMed, an urgent care facility a couple miles from our home.

Unknown to me, immediately after leaving Caroline started screaming and didn't quit.  By the time they reached KidMed she was soaking wet with sweat and was turning blue from the waist down.  I will be forever grateful to the doctors at that facility for handling the situation so swiftly, she was given a catheter, IV of fluids, x-rays, blood tests, pain medication, high dose antibiotics and oxygen. 

Dave proceeded to call me shortly thereafter and sparing me the details, requested that I drop Katie off someone and come immediately.  Thank goodness for the Lake Family, who handled my hysterical phone call with ease and actually met me at the car to take Katie so that I could be on my way. 

Once at KidMed, the doctor pulled me aside before I could see Caroline.  I'll preface that Dave and/or I have been to the doctor countless times with our sick children.  They always diagnose the problem, give us medicine and send us on our way (just as we assumed today would be).  Never had I been in a situation where the doctor was so serious and forth coming.  She told me straight off that Caroline was a very sick baby, that she had already called our pedestrian for a second opinion, was quite certain that Caroline had a blood infection and that they would be transferring her to a hospital shortly.  More to the point, what scared me the most was that she was visibly concerned, very worried about our daughter.

Over the next two hours Caroline started slowing improving until finally she was sitting up, laughing, acting right as rain and we were able to go home.  Nothing but a simple ear infection was found, though the doctors say an undetermined virus must have been the more serious culprit.  At our follow-up appointment on Monday, our pediatrician once again relayed to me how serious Carolines situation had been.  Obviously concerning, it took her a full week to eat and return to normal, but we're just happy that our baby is well so we're going to focus on that!

On Sunday Katie woke up with 102 and a stomach bug, the first time we'd ever seen her feeling so poorly.  After another call to our pediatrician's on-call doctor they gave her the same high-dose antibiotics that Caroline was on, just to be on the safe side.

So I would like to take a moment to say  . . THANK YOU!
  • To Dr. Carpenter at KidMed who went over and beyond with our daughter
  • To the Arin and Jason Lake for watching Katie during the time we needed it most
  • To my mother-in-law, Nancy for dropping everything and coming straight to help
  • To my mom who came that next week so that I could keep Caroline out of school
  • To Katie who went right into Jason Lake's arms excited about the party and not bothered that her mommy was leaving her.
  • To Caroline, for being a trooper and coming through like the champ that she is!
After learning that we'd be soon leaving KidMed with Caroline :)



Katie enjoying herself at Chloe's Birthday
    

No comments:

Post a Comment