I don't think there is any good way to lead into what I have been up to for the last two weeks. It hasn't been fun, or funny, or silly, or anything close to joyful. In fact, it's been kinda scary, really frustrating, and exhausting.
Lucy has been sick. Not with anything horrible, just a double ear infection, and have no fear, she is fine now, but this darn ear infection has taught us more about our little lady than we thought we could learn in such a short amount of time.
Anyone with kids knows how hard it is to 'guess' why your infant is crying. So, two weeks ago when my SIL Lisa and I sat down at Einstein's with a couple of bagels and a screaming Lucy, I figured she'd just had enough of our weekly errands and really missed her nap. When bites of my lunch didn't please her, I figured something was wrong and we left. At home I discovered a slight fever, gave her some tylenol, and put her to bed. No biggie, since she's cutting lots of new teeth lately.
The next day, she was fine. Woke up happy, ate well, took a good long nap. It wasn't until I picked her up from her nap that I knew something wasn't right. Her little body was on fire. Then she threw up. I called the doctor and we went in.
We got to the doctor and into the office, where I started to undress Lucy for her weight and temperature check. Then, right there in front of the nurse, in my arms, she had a seizure.
Now it sounds terrifying, and trust me, it was, but that's the extent of it. Lucy had a febrile seizure, which is fairly common in infants when their body temperature goes up very high, very fast. (For her, that spike was from 101 to 104.9 in two hours.) I'm sure there are tons of questions swimming around in some heads right now, there certainly were more than enough in ours. What we know is that this seizure is not linked to epilepsy or any long term damage. She could have more, so we need to be careful, but she should outgrow it by age 6. It does run in families, however as of right now we do not know of anyone else in ours that has ever experienced one. We were reassured repeatedly by her doctor that she will be fine, our job now is to catch fevers fast and hope this is a one time thing.
Ok, so back to my story, because as much as I wish it did, it does not end there...
Lucy has this seizure in the doctor's office. And as scared as I was, I was happy to be with her doctor while we went through this for the first time. Her doctor, awesome as she is, talked me through everything, then escorted us to the ER for observations and to find out what the heck was making her so sick.
We sat in the ER for 4 hours. We went through x-rays and a nice swab for the flu (and to make this fun we were quarantined for a bit before they ruled that out), a blood test and a urinalysis (no easy task on my toddler), and still nothing showed any sort of illness. The doctor put in an IV (again, imagine my poor infant) and gave her fluids and more medicine while we waited and waited and waited for more inconclusive results. Finally, the doctor checked her ears. (To be fair, I will say he did this once when we first got there, but Lucy was so hot that he said he could not tell if there was an infection because her entire face was so red.)
All of that and Lucy had an ear infection in her left ear. Home we went, and she was crabby, but fine. Her fever was controlled, but kept creeping back up to 105. So, two days later we went back to her doctor. That's when we found out both ears were infected. Home again, with some pink amoxicillin.
We managed to go a week this time, Lucy feeling better all of the time. We had a follow up scheduled, so in we went. We got an all clear, a flu shot, and everyone was happy. Finally.
Well, not really, that was Friday and by Sunday Lucy was covered in a head to toe rash. Back we went on Monday. The highlight of this trip, we found out Lucy is allergic to penicillin.
Now, if you are counting, you'd know that is 4 trips in 12 days. I think I can finally say with some confidence that we will not be back until her next check up (in a short month). Lucy, now, seems to be fine. She has a runny nose, but that is because she did get 2 new teeth in these last two weeks too. She also has decided sleeping alone is underrated and prefers only to sleep next to me. I hate this new habit, but after all she went through I'm going to let her have it for just a wee bit longer.
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