Calm Amongst the Chaos

Lily was 3 weeks old 3 days when we took her to the ER. I watched her get poked, prodded and scanned. It was heartbreaking and devastating.
So imagine my surprise and detriment when there I was 6 in a half years later at the same hospital in the same ER with my 3 week 3 day old son. We were NOT there due to a seizure, but we were there. He woke up at 3 am for a feeding and was burning up. I took his temp off and on for an hour, took off his clothes and prayed it would go away. I looked online when to go to the hospital and it says over 38 Celsius. He was just at 38 degrees and I didn’t know what to do. Andrew was up north with my parents and the girls. At 4am I called on call ped and the RN called me back at 5:30am. She said it was borderline, she’d call back at 6:30am and go from there. At 6:30am he was 38.1 and she said “take him in”. I take him in.
It was a whirl wind from there. They have a protocol for kids under 4 weeks with a fever and it is not pretty. Right in front of my eyes there they are stripping him, putting a cath in him, poking him for blood, trying to get an IV and then the said he needed a lumbar puncture. I stood there watching them hold him in a ball, he was screaming and I was bawling. No more pride, no more trying to be strong, they were hurting my baby and it was killing me. I stood there staring when I finally “Mom..Mom” I look at the nurse and she is looking at me asking me if I am ok, do I need to sit down. I nod that I am ok and stroke his hair. I can’t express how absolutely awful that was to see. I did not see 3 week old Lily have her LP done. They then tell me he will be admitted for up to 3 days, possibly longer then they leave me to nurse him. I call Andrew and start crying. “It is bringing back too many memories, I’m dying here” I tell him. He calms me down. Tells me not to worry about the girls, because I indeed was and we were in our room in less than an hour.
So for the rest of that day they are poking my boy, checking his temp (which had almost all but gone normal by the time we were admitted), blood pressure, etc. They shoved a thing up his nose to check for RSV. It was awful. My sister and aunt stayed with me the first day. Andrew drove back with the girls that day and he came to visit in the evening while my nieces watched the girls. I heard Lily is sick (again!) and Andi was refusing to take her antibiotics while up north. Great. I knew this is why he was sick in the first place. I just wish he got sick on a Monday, I would have rather taken him to our pediatrician first before the ER. We were told no one under 12 could visit, which was heartbreaking for Andi. She was so sad. It was funny, when Andrew told her Sunday night he was going to visit us she said “well how old are you?” She is so funny.
We had to stay at least 48 hours to get all the results back. Of course they were all negative. They pumped him so full of antibiotics he had loose stools and stinky pee. And most likely he just had a virus that wouldn’t respond at all to the antibiotics at all in the first place.
Monday he was crying inconsolably and I was really worried. I thought, this is a brain thing, something is wrong him. The RN said I think his IV might be bad and sure enough it was. He was having meds go in a bad line and they said that can be painful. I was just sick with guilt having my baby hurt over and over. And then they had to take the one out and put a new one in.
By Monday night I had had it with that place. The beeping machines, the techs who didn’t care about waking up a sleepy baby for stats, the nurse who wasn’t very sweet, it was all to much and I got very agitated around 3am.
Thank God at 8am I was told all is negative and we can go home. But first we had to stop by the cashier who kindly told me I owed $1100.
Sigh.
We’re home. Oliver has been the most at peace since Friday (he was fussy on Sat before the fever started). He is back to his old self and I am not compulsively worrying that he will have something wrong with his brain any minute.
Oliver will be fine. No fever since admission on Sunday Morning. He has no congestion, anything. We go for a follow up with his pediatrician tomorrow and he will have his RSV results, which I am sure will be negative as well.
It was a tough two days. The memories were overwhelming of that first hospital stay with Lily and there was no sun shine, I hadn’t seen my girls since Friday, it was awful.
It is amazing though how much we think a scar has healed when we don’t look at it. Then we catch a glimpse of it and we realize it is still more of an open wound than a scar. I think I will always have a gaping wound when it comes to all we have gone through with Lily. Every time I think I am healed and take off the bandage I am reminded I am still wounded.