Friday, March 18, 2011

No Rest for the Weary

At 1:30 this morning I sat straight up in bed, threw the covers off, and ran to Averi's room.  Somehow I knew something was wrong and I needed to get to her as quickly as possible.  When I got to her crib she was laying face down in a puddle of throw up.  I quickly picked her up and cleaned her off with the help of a very startled Dan.

My only explanation is that our Heavenly Father was watching over her.  I am a sound sleeper to begin with and I had only been asleep for an hour so I was out cold.  Averi didn't make any loud sounds or cry out so there was nothing to alarm us that something was wrong.  Thankfully, she was sleeping on her stomach so she didn't aspirate.  It sends chills down my back to imagine what would have happened if I hadn't been prompted to go to her.

Averi doesn't just throw up for no reason, so after changing her clothes and the bedding we took her temperature.  It was normal.  We hoped that it was just a freak occurrence and started putting her back in bed when she puked again.  I glanced at Dan and we exchanged the 'do we call the doctor or not?' look.  He said that if she threw up a third time then we would be more proactive.

We set up the pack 'n play in our room, since I wasn't about to leave her in a room by herself, and turned off the lights.  Guess what?  She threw up again.  We took her temperature again and it had gone up more than 2 degrees.  Since she's had problems with axillary temps lately we took an oral one and that one was even higher.

This is when the internal debate happens.  If we call the attending on call they are going to tell us to go to the Emergency Department.  If we go to the ED they are going to take blood cultures and admit Averi for at least 2 days until the results come back.  So picking up the phone is making a big commitment, especially at 2:30 in the morning.  We finally called after the fourth puke.

Needless to say, the rest of the night played out exactly how we thought it would.  The frustrating thing was sitting in a tiny room in the ED, watching them use dirty cuffs and monitors on my immunodeficient daughter, when they know she's going to be admitted and we could be up on the oncology floor where people know how to take proper care of her.

We finally got a room on the floor around 6:30 this morning.  The puking has stopped and her blood pressure is pretty normal, but her temperature is still up and they want to keep an eye on her for a couple of days.  They swabbed her nose (that thing goes up way further than I anticipated) and sent her blood for cultures.

We were only home for 1 day, ONE DAY, before having to return.  There goes my crazy idea that we would have a nice relaxing weekend at home as a family. =P

2 comments:

Lauren in GA said...

Oh, Tiffany. I got chills as I read this. Heavenly Father sent you right into that room. Good job listening to the promptings of the Holy Ghost, Tiffany.

Tina said...

Relaxing time at home, What were you thinking? One day soon, who knows maybe within the next couple posts, because I haven't read that far.