I struggled to come up with an appropriate title to this blog. Nothing
really sounds right. Our trip to the hospital, our 3 nights in the hospital, my
baby was in the hospital???? On Wednesday, October 24th, Wesley was officially
5 weeks old. We have been struggling with a "colicky" baby these past
couple of weeks and I am not sure she was anymore colicky or fussy this day.
Around 3:45pm I left to go pick Austin up at school and Wesley stayed back with
Sandy. There were various fundraising activities going on at Austin's school so
pick up took a lot longer than usually. We got in my car about 4:15pm and my
phone was ringing. It was Sandy. I could tell by her voice that something was
wrong. She seemed panicked. She said that Wesley was very lethargic and she was
not able to rouse her. Part of me thought Nana was being silly, I was just home,
and the other part of me thought to myself something is wrong. I told her we
were on our way and I immediately called Luke. My rock. I am not sure how I
would get through life without this man. I calmly said something is wrong with Wesley;
you need to come home now. As I drove the 2 miles home I thought to myself if
something was really wrong she would have called 911. Then I thought, what if I
hear sirens, I pressed on the gas a little harder.
When I opened the door to the house I could hear that Wesley was crying and
I immediately felt better. Sandy was still panicked. She told me that right
after I left Wesley just seemed to go limp and she couldn't get her to wake
back up. She finally had to pinch her to stay awake. She handed Wesley to me
and I thought that she felt warm and decided to take her temperature. 100.4. Not
extremely high, but I remember the discharge paperwork from the hosptial said
100.4 or higher in a newborn you need to call the doctor. I called and the
doctor's office said to come in at 5:10pm. Thank god they have office hours
until 6pm.
Luke, Wesley and I headed off to the doctor's office and Sandy stayed home
with Austin. We had to wait forever to see the doctor. Once we saw the doctor
the only thing she could see was her right ear seemed to be red. She said she
wanted a second opinion and the nurse practitioner came in and said she thought
it looked red too. How the heck does a 5 week old get an ear infection? The
doctor explained to us that in babies this young (under 8 weeks) they
automatically get admitted to the hospital for 48 hours of IV antibiotics if a
fever is present. She made sure we understood everything and then left to call
the hospital to make sure they had a room available for us. She came back in
and said to go home and pack and she would call us when the hospital was ready.
At this point everything was a blur. I kept telling myself it’s just an ear
infection.
We got to the hospital about 7:30pm and the next hour was a stream of nurses
and doctors coming in asking the same questions and examining Wesley. The
doctor explained to us that they would do blood and urine collections and
cultures and they might want to do a spinal tap. They told us they would start
her on IV antibiotics to treat whatever this was. At some point the doctor came
back and said that we were in a "gray" area when it came to the
spinal tap. All babies under 30 days get the spinal tap. Wesley was 35 days. It
was up to us, but she said she felt more comfortable with doing it so they
could rule out meningitis. Luke and I agreed to it.
They came to get her for the spinal tap, blood and urine collection and we
decided that Luke would go with. The procedure room was actually not too far
from our hospital room...I could hear her cry. I sat in the room alone and
bawled my eyes out. I wanted so bad to be with my baby. But, Luke is the strong
one. After about an hour Luke and Wesley came back. Luke was different. I could
tell he was traumatized. He said they didn't get the urine and would have to do
that later. The nurse came in and hooked up Wesley's first antibiotics. She
would be on two different antibiotics. One was given every 8 hours and one was
given every 6. She had to be hooked to the IV machine for 30 minutes and we
would be able to hold her the entire time.
We took turns holding her in the chair while the
other one got a couple of hours of rest in the window seat/bed. When the doctor
came in on Thursday he said that none of the cultures had come back yet. I
guess they checked them at 24 hours and 48 hours. He said that the blood test
looked good and the initial spinal tap looked good. Both my Mom and Sandy came
down to visit and Luke left to go pick Austin up at school and to spend a
couple of hours with her. Her first question to Luke was, when are Mommy and
Wesley going to come home. Luke came back down to the hospital and Thursday
night was the same with us switching off holding Wesley.
On Friday when we saw the doctor and she said that
the urine culture had come back positive for both strep and e-coli. This meant
that Wesley had a UTI. She said in babies this young they are concerned for
kidney reflux when they get a UTI. She ordered an ultrasound and said at some
point once Wesley was better they would test her for Vesicoureteral Reflux
(VUR). She explained that VCR or kidney reflux was abnormal flow of urine from
the bladder backup to the kidneys. She said that most likely we could be
discharged on Saturday and Wesley would be put on oral antibiotics. I was so
happy at the thought of being discharged and being back at home. Austin and
Sandy came by on Friday for a short visit. That evening (at freaking Midnight)
they finally came up to get Wesley for her ultrasound. Both Luke and I went down
and it went pretty quickly.
On Saturday morning was Austin’s school’s fall festival
and Luke left to take her to it and my Mom came down in the hopes we would still
be discharged. We saw the doctor early (which was nice) and he said everything looked
good on the ultrasound and someone from their office will call to schedule the
VUR test and we should probably have it done at Phoenix’s Children’s Hospital.
We were given discharge papers and finally on our way home by lunch.
Wesley’s is almost done with her antibiotics. I will
update more once we have gone for the test.
