Scarlett's Fever

Last night is one ordeal that I never ever ever want to repeat again! It all started late yesterday afternoon. Scarlett was very hot, so I took her temperature. She had 99 degrees, so I gave her some Baby Tylenol. It worked. Her fever dropped. A few hours later she was not acting right. She was extremely fussy and hot. Joe took her temperature, and she had over 102. So, we called our doctor to see what we should do. They have an answering service, so the doctor on call would have to call us back. In the mean time, I called Dr. Dave in Atlanta to see what he thought. I didn’t have time to wait on someone to return my call when my little baby was obviously not doing so well. Dr. Dave said to take her to the ER. As we were almost ready to run out the door, my doctor’s office called back. I just gave the phone to Joe. I didn’t care what he had to say… we were headed to the hospital! Oh, as all this started to unfold we were in the middle of cooking dinner, so we turned off the oven, grabbed her bag, etc.

We decided the best place to take her was Baylor Medical Center which isn’t too far from our home. Luckily I called ahead… they had no pediatric ER. So I told them nevermind. We were going to Medical City Dallas, the hospital where she was born and where her doctor was associated. The ride there was not fun. We were both stressed and to top it all off there was this big gang of motorcycle people weaving through traffic. At least 5 of them drove in between us and another vehicle in the lane next too us. If any of you have ever ridden in a car with me… well, just imagine how it was.

We pulled in and I ran in with her as quickly as I could while Joe parked the car. These people knew I was very upset. I was crying and extremely panicked. At this point, Scarlett was breathing very heavily and really didn’t seem right at all. The led us into an exam room immediately. They took her temperature, and she had 105 degrees!! Oh, this wasn’t good. So, they started doing tests…. A chest x-ray, a urine specimen which required a catheter, blood work which required an IV, and then they wanted to do a spinal tap. Are you kidding me?? I immediately told them NO! Well, the doctor insisted (please note that this doctor looked like she was 12 years old!!). She thought that she might possibly have spinal meningitis and kept telling me that Scarlett could die. I really wanted to wait and see what the other tests showed, but they wanted to do it anyway. So, they made us leave the room while they did this. I could hear her screams down the halls. It was just horrible and broke my heart.

It ended up being a urinary tract infection. They gave her a big dose of antibiotics and sent us home with instructions to go to our pediatrician this morning for more antibiotics and tests. We met with her doctor this morning. He too did not think that a spinal tap was necessary, but he did point out that that was easy to say now seeing that we had clear results. We do have to go back next week for more tests to make sure that her kidneys are working properly and that there are no abnormalities. Please pray that all her tests are clear.

Here are a few pictures that I took of her the other night before I put her to bed. She was so happy lying in her crib that I wanted to take a few pictures, so I ran downstairs to get the camera. Once back up the stairs, I realized that the batteries were dead…. So back down and up again. She was still happy as a little lark when I returned.