I'm sure most of you have seen on my Instagram or Facebook that we spent Friday night and all of Saturday at the hospital with Graeme. It was the worst night of our life so far.
Graeme had trouble sleeping all day on Friday. He didn't seem to have anything really wrong with him though. He didn't feel warm to me. He was eating like normal. He just didn't want to sleep at all. Even if I held him to put him to sleep, he would just stare around. Aaron was gone all day, and by the time he got home, I was exhausted.
I let him take over Graeme for awhile, and he tried to lay him down for bed while I took a shower. Graeme slept for all of 20 minutes. It was at this point that Aaron suggested taking his temperature.
I did. And it was 100.8. That isn't high for most people, but our doctor had made it clear that until a baby reached three months, any temperature over 100.4 was dangerous.
I tried not to worry yet. We took his pajamas and blanket off of him in case they were making him extra warm. We took him downstairs and held him. He was SO tired.
I took his temperature again every several minutes over the next half hour. It would fluctuate a bit, but it read above 100.4 a couple more times.
Of course things like this always seem to happen at night or on a weekend. In this case, both. I called our pediatrician's office to get the number for the on-call nurse.
I talked to the phone-answering person who took all of Graeme's information, his symptoms, and my number. He said a nurse would call me back within 10 minutes. When the nurse called, he asked for all of the symptoms again and said a doctor would call within 30 minutes. Good grief with the phone tag.
Finally, someone that represented the doctor (I guess she was a nurse) called. She confirmed his temperature again with me, and then said we needed to bring Graeme to the ER.
Begin major panic.
I stayed calm enough to find out which ER we should go to, but as soon as I hung up, I started sobbing.
Oh, I was a wreck. Thank goodness Aaron is amazing and always calm and strong when I freak out.
We somehow made it out the door 10 minutes later in hoodies and jeans with Graeme, his diaper bag, and one phone charger. That was it. Aaron called my parents and calmly told them the situation and asked them to come get Penny.
I rode in the backseat with Graeme, who was finally fast asleep, and tried not to cry the entire way to the ER. I prayed and prayed.
When we got to the hospital, Aaron couldn't find a parking spot. He circled under the drop-off and said I could take Graeme in while he searched for a place to park. The thought of being without him for even a few minutes was enough to make me cry again. Through my crying/hyperventilating, I managed to say, "Don't leave me! I can't take him in by myself!"
Wonderful Aaron rolled his eyes lovingly (he has to be like that to make up for my over-dramatic emotions in these kind of situations), reminded me again that Graeme was going to be fine, and left the car next to the entrance to walk us inside.
We got checked in and were immediately seen by a triage nurse. She took Graeme's vitals and asked us all about his symptoms again. When she took his temperature, he did not have a fever. For a second, I thought that meant we might be able to leave. Alas, since WE had read a fever at home, they had to check him out.
Little did we know what "check him out" was going to entail...
We were taken to a hospital room in the children's emergency hospital. A doctor came in a few minutes later and we had to explain all of the symptoms again. He then told us the plan.
Since Graeme was so young, a fever is very serious and can be, in some cases, the only sign of a very serious bacterial infection. It can of course just be the result of a virus, but the only way to be sure is to test basically everything. He explained that they would draw blood, urine, and snot (I forget the fancy doctor word for snot). He said that they would need to test for meningitis and other infections by drawing spinal fluid. He also told us we couldn't feed him for the time being.
As soon as the doctor left the room, I lost it again. I wanted there to be some way, any way, that I could take Graeme's place. I wished that I was sick instead. I was freaking out that they were about to poke and prod and torture my little boy (even though I knew it was for his good) who had no idea what was about to happen. And I didn't even remember what meningitis was, but I knew by the doctor's tone that it could be very serious and terrible. My mind of course leaps to the worst case scenario always.
I will save you from a longer story. Over the next couple of hours, they drew blood and urine and snot. Graeme, as you can imagine, screamed. I cried. Aaron consoled us both. When it was time to draw the spinal fluid, Aaron and I had to leave the room. I didn't even want to think about what they were doing to him, but it was hard not to. It was a very, very long 15 minutes until we could go back in. Graeme looked so tiny on the hospital bed. He was fast asleep.
After that, it was just waiting. Some of the results would be back in a couple hours. Some would take 24 hours. They told us to plan on being in the hospital for two days. When they left the room to let us rest, Aaron and I just looked at each other and were in disbelief of how the night had turned out. We were so drained. All there was left to do was try to sleep until they admitted us upstairs to the hospital.
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| Putting on our trying to be brave, really tired at 3am faces. |
Early Saturday morning, they took us upstairs. Throughout the night, different doctors had come by and given us results as they could. So far, everything had come back negative and looked great. We were reassured, but my mind was still worried about the results that would take longer to get.
We settled into our real hospital room as best we could. Graeme woke up to eat, but he was so exhausted, he went right back to sleep. Aaron's mom brought us breakfast and held Graeme while we tried to sleep on the little pull-out bed thing.
My family came eventually. I was so glad to see my mom. No matter how old you are, sometimes your mom can just make any situation better. We got another hour of sleep while we waited for the doctors to come by.
When the doctors finally stopped by our room, they brought good news. They were impressed with Graeme's results so far, and the fact that he hadn't shown a temperature yet that day. To our delight, they actually gave us the option to go home at the end of the day after Graeme could get one more round of antibiotics to last him another 24 hours. They told us that if they were at all worried about Graeme, they wouldn't even give us the option to leave. They said that it was almost certain that he just had a virus that was probably on it's way out. And they took away my last big worry: he did not have meningitis.
We were so, so thankful. And so ready to leave. We felt disgusting. And we were ready to take our boy home.
Graeme slept for the majority of the day in the hospital. We tried to sleep as much as we could. By the time of Graeme's evening feeding, Aaron and I felt pretty rested. Graeme must have finally caught up on enough sleep too, because after he ate, he stayed awake for quite awhile and gave us a knock-your-socks-off adorable smile session. He just could not stop smiling. It was the very best end to our awful day. That, and leaving to go home a couple of hours later!
This whole experience taught me many things. Here are a few.
- It's easy to say, "I trust God." It's harder to put it into action when you're tested. I had to put my trust in God, because there was nothing else I could do. God answered my prayers and I know He was in control even when I was freaking out. He is constantly faithful to this worrisome mommy.
- I have a brand new respect for parents who have children in the hospital all of the time. We were not even there for 24 hours and it was the longest day ever. It is the worst thing seeing your child hooked up to all of those monitors. I can't imagine staying at the hospital with a child long-term.
- I would have done anything to take Graeme's place. He's my son, and I couldn't stand seeing him suffer. God loved me enough to let His Son suffer and die for me. I saw His love for me in a new light.
- Pediatric nurses and doctors are awesome. They have to do some not fun stuff to little babies and kids all the time. Their job is not for the faint of heart. I am thankful for them and for all the work they put in to do their job.
Graeme is much better. He still has a stuffed-up nose and a little cough, but other than that, he's fine. His pediatrician saw him today and said he looked good.
The lab will continue to watch his cultures for five days, but it is rare for anything to show up after 48 hours.
Thank goodness that experience is behind us. We are stronger because of it, and we will never forget it!
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| Leaving the hospital in all the same clothes we came in! |
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