Our trip to the hospital

As you well know from reading my last post, Elsie was kind of being a grumpety-grump last week and didn't seem to be feeling too great. On Wednesday she had a bit of a fever, but nothing too extreme. That night at about 1:30 a.m. she woke up crying, so I went in her room to get her back to sleep. I decided to give her a bottle since she really hadn't eaten much that day, and I knew it would calm her down. I noticed she was kind of shivering as she was drinking, but I didn't want to disrupt her since she was pretty enthusiastically drinking the bottle. Once she was done, I cuddled her to try to warm her up and noticed that the shivering was getting stronger and her breathing sounded very labored. I woke up Aaron and he held her for a minute and felt like we needed to take her into the hospital. By this time her lips were turning bluish. I woke up my mom to see what she thought and she held Elsie while Aaron and I got dressed. By the time we got to the ER, Elsie was not shaking anymore but her lips were still bluish. The did all sorts of tests to check for everything (this all took about 4 hours) and determined that she had a double ear infection, some signs of pneumonia (not too bad), and, most concerning, a very bad urinary tract infection. Because of her fever and the severity of the infection, the doctor felt like she needed to be admitted to the hospital to get an IV and for observation. We were hoping that it was something that could've been treated at home because we knew being in the hospital was not going to be great for any of us! Elsie had to get the IV through her hand. Oh my goodness, that was the worst! She was so upset when they were doing it and we were completely helpless. She kept crying out and looking at us. Aaron was so upset by that. So, for all day Thursday, overnight (Aaron stayed at the hospital that night and let me go home and sleep...what a stud!), and all day Friday, the nurses and doctor monitored how much she drank and peed. She would get so upset when any nurse or cleaning person walked in the room...even if they weren't even touching her. It was kind of funny. Most everyone commeted on how cute she was and then followed up with how she's got a bit of a temper. I guess I should've been offended, but they are so right! Just as we expected, she didn't do very great on drinking but her fever never returned and by Friday she was definitely getting antsy. We were convinced that she would do much better at home with sleeping in her own bed and being able to drink with her sippy cup. At the hospital she couldn't hold her cup because of the IV. Thank goodness the doctor let us go home Friday night! Elsie is doing much better at home and it a happy little girl now. I feel so bad that she was miserable and I was getting so frustrated with her. If only she could tell me what was going on! They are going to do an evaluation of her kidneys, urinary tract, and bladder to check the anatomy to make sure that is not causing the problem. Hopefully it isn't...although that is what was wrong with me when I was a child and I had to have surgery. We are so glad to be home and to see that Elsie is obviously feeling better than she was last week.