Actually, I take that back. The CT was ok, but the night ended up being far from uneventful. They did come grab us around midnight. D had managed to doze off again a bit on top of me, and so did I. We rested in the arm chair until we were woken up around 11:40 by one of the monitors blaring loudly. Not sure what it was trying to signal, but in the process of trying the silence the damn thing, I disconnected some of the cords connected to the kid and before I knew it, it was a whole production that involved the nurse coming and cleaning up all the wires.
The reason for not letting D eat was because they wanted to sedate her for the CT by giving her Ativan. Said that it would knock her out briefly so that she'd remain still during the scan. They set her on the table, gave her the meds through her IV, and waited for her to pass out. Except that she didn't. She seemed to get a little sleepy but actually smiled and chatted with the nurses for the first time ever. "Hi," she said, kind of smiling. They finally just did the scan. She cried and moved a bit, but the tech kept distracting her by telling her to "look at the lights. See pretty lights. Red lights. Blue lights. Where are the lights?" It could have been out of my brief pot-smoking days, with her dopily trying to reach out and touch the lights. Is it bad that I was wishing the whole time that I'd had my phone with me so I could grab a video of my drugged up kid?
Oh, and as we were heading off to get the CT, they checked her temp and she was starting to run a fever. But they couldn't give her anything until after the test. So the poor thing was shivering a bit on the table. For the most part though, the test went off without too much of a hitch. We came back. They checked her again and her fever had gone up higher. It turned out though that one of the other things that her docs had wanted to do is get a blood culture while she was having the fever to see if they could pinpoint what was going on. So they couldn't give her drugs until the lab came by and collected more blood, which he finally did around 2. D lay on me most of the time, but it was a bit funny to watch her. She was definitely dazed and kind of teetered a little while sitting on my lap, but was also a bit more active than I would have expected. She eventually kind of dozed on my lap though until the lab guy showed up. I think anyway, because I was passed out.
So now, we're what at like 2:30? I don't know if it was the catnapping but more likely the Ativan, I'm guessing, but the kid was wired after that. I was dying, ready to drop any minute (Tues night, she'd been up from 1-4:30, Wed had been spent in the ER). But there was my kid climbing all over my lap and chatting happily. I'm pretty sure I actually fell asleep a few times while she was climbing because she'd keep waking me up by whacking me in the chest. She was also pulling on her wires, and every so often, I'd have to get the nurse back in to re-adjust her.
I went home for a while in the evening, and G had been telling me how nice the night nurse was. But I don't think she liked me much. Well, unless she likes passive-aggressive whiners, in which case, we should be good friends. It was probably the lack of sleep and the general feeling of helplessness, but I was definitely having difficulties last night. I might have asked them "several' times if there were any other options for the CT since our baby was SO hungry and hadn't really eaten all day. And OMG, if we could just get her to sleep, we may be able to help her forget her debilitating hunger pains, but there was just no way for that to happen in this setting. What with the loud housekeeping and frequent nurse visits. When she told me about the blood draw, I just kind of looked at her, sighed, and asked if they could maybe come soon because our kid hadn't slept all night and her fever was climbing up to boot. Every time some one came in to re-adjust D's wires, I'd throw in a comment about how awkward those wires were and so not conducive to sleeping. I think I mentioned our rough night to every nurse, intern, doctor, and random person in the hallway I could think of last night. I'm quite sure that I was everyone's absolute favorite parent. HA, G even mentioned after how all the nurses asked him if he needed anything, if they could go grab him a drink, help him change a diaper, etc. I'll tell you that I did not get that kind of sympathy.
Anyway, soon after blood draw, the doc came in. I mentioned the weird dazed/alert affect and she said, actually in a rare number of cases, Ativan causes this paradoxical effect. Awesome! She went on to deliver more good news. The CT showed that both kidneys were infected. So yah, that unlikely thing they thought it wasn't? It totally was. They don't know why her urine test and cultures have come back negative. They also don't know why our last ultrasound in urology was normal-looking while our abdominal ultrasound showed swelling. They don't know if she's had this kidney infection since we were in India (which I suspect she has), and if so, what that means for her long-term kidney function. Our urologist had told us last year that every infection has the potential to cause some renal damage and it'll be hard to know what until much later in D's life. So the possibility of a month and a half long infection? Who knows. I have lots of questions, but no one's been by yet this morning to discuss yet. Last night, the doc just had some preliminary results. The radiologist is supposed to go over the CT in more detail today. The ID folks were in here saying they were going to review the scan as well, and then possibly connect with the urology or nephrology team. They started antibiotics at 3 in the morning (while D was in my lap pulling out her wires). Hopefully, we'll have more answers by the end of the day.
In the meantime, I'm happy that they've finally diagnosed her. Of course, it was what G and I said it was back when she got sick in India and have been wondering about EVERY TIME she's gotten sick in the last month a half. But hey, we're not doctors, what do we know? And I guess after all the specialists and testing, my pediatrician's gut had been right all along too. So anyway, guess we'll see what more we hear during the day.
The reason for not letting D eat was because they wanted to sedate her for the CT by giving her Ativan. Said that it would knock her out briefly so that she'd remain still during the scan. They set her on the table, gave her the meds through her IV, and waited for her to pass out. Except that she didn't. She seemed to get a little sleepy but actually smiled and chatted with the nurses for the first time ever. "Hi," she said, kind of smiling. They finally just did the scan. She cried and moved a bit, but the tech kept distracting her by telling her to "look at the lights. See pretty lights. Red lights. Blue lights. Where are the lights?" It could have been out of my brief pot-smoking days, with her dopily trying to reach out and touch the lights. Is it bad that I was wishing the whole time that I'd had my phone with me so I could grab a video of my drugged up kid?
Oh, and as we were heading off to get the CT, they checked her temp and she was starting to run a fever. But they couldn't give her anything until after the test. So the poor thing was shivering a bit on the table. For the most part though, the test went off without too much of a hitch. We came back. They checked her again and her fever had gone up higher. It turned out though that one of the other things that her docs had wanted to do is get a blood culture while she was having the fever to see if they could pinpoint what was going on. So they couldn't give her drugs until the lab came by and collected more blood, which he finally did around 2. D lay on me most of the time, but it was a bit funny to watch her. She was definitely dazed and kind of teetered a little while sitting on my lap, but was also a bit more active than I would have expected. She eventually kind of dozed on my lap though until the lab guy showed up. I think anyway, because I was passed out.
So now, we're what at like 2:30? I don't know if it was the catnapping but more likely the Ativan, I'm guessing, but the kid was wired after that. I was dying, ready to drop any minute (Tues night, she'd been up from 1-4:30, Wed had been spent in the ER). But there was my kid climbing all over my lap and chatting happily. I'm pretty sure I actually fell asleep a few times while she was climbing because she'd keep waking me up by whacking me in the chest. She was also pulling on her wires, and every so often, I'd have to get the nurse back in to re-adjust her.
I went home for a while in the evening, and G had been telling me how nice the night nurse was. But I don't think she liked me much. Well, unless she likes passive-aggressive whiners, in which case, we should be good friends. It was probably the lack of sleep and the general feeling of helplessness, but I was definitely having difficulties last night. I might have asked them "several' times if there were any other options for the CT since our baby was SO hungry and hadn't really eaten all day. And OMG, if we could just get her to sleep, we may be able to help her forget her debilitating hunger pains, but there was just no way for that to happen in this setting. What with the loud housekeeping and frequent nurse visits. When she told me about the blood draw, I just kind of looked at her, sighed, and asked if they could maybe come soon because our kid hadn't slept all night and her fever was climbing up to boot. Every time some one came in to re-adjust D's wires, I'd throw in a comment about how awkward those wires were and so not conducive to sleeping. I think I mentioned our rough night to every nurse, intern, doctor, and random person in the hallway I could think of last night. I'm quite sure that I was everyone's absolute favorite parent. HA, G even mentioned after how all the nurses asked him if he needed anything, if they could go grab him a drink, help him change a diaper, etc. I'll tell you that I did not get that kind of sympathy.
Anyway, soon after blood draw, the doc came in. I mentioned the weird dazed/alert affect and she said, actually in a rare number of cases, Ativan causes this paradoxical effect. Awesome! She went on to deliver more good news. The CT showed that both kidneys were infected. So yah, that unlikely thing they thought it wasn't? It totally was. They don't know why her urine test and cultures have come back negative. They also don't know why our last ultrasound in urology was normal-looking while our abdominal ultrasound showed swelling. They don't know if she's had this kidney infection since we were in India (which I suspect she has), and if so, what that means for her long-term kidney function. Our urologist had told us last year that every infection has the potential to cause some renal damage and it'll be hard to know what until much later in D's life. So the possibility of a month and a half long infection? Who knows. I have lots of questions, but no one's been by yet this morning to discuss yet. Last night, the doc just had some preliminary results. The radiologist is supposed to go over the CT in more detail today. The ID folks were in here saying they were going to review the scan as well, and then possibly connect with the urology or nephrology team. They started antibiotics at 3 in the morning (while D was in my lap pulling out her wires). Hopefully, we'll have more answers by the end of the day.
In the meantime, I'm happy that they've finally diagnosed her. Of course, it was what G and I said it was back when she got sick in India and have been wondering about EVERY TIME she's gotten sick in the last month a half. But hey, we're not doctors, what do we know? And I guess after all the specialists and testing, my pediatrician's gut had been right all along too. So anyway, guess we'll see what more we hear during the day.
Seriously...call if you need ANYTHING! Hope you all get some sleep and food soon!
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