Hospitals

Today was not a good day. Or I guess it would have started last night.

Yesterday, M had a fever and his pee smelled very strongly and he was just incredibly uncomfortable and whining. We gave him Tylenol and he seemed to feel a bit better, but by evening he was an inconsolable mess. T thought it was just a tummyache, so we gave him some Ovol drops as well (which he proceeded to barf up along with some formula) and then we gave him a bath. T got him settled down upstairs.

12:30am rolls around, and T had brought M downstairs at some point, and M was making noises again. So I got up with him and he was normal temperature to touch, so I figured he just wanted some snuggles. Got settled on the couch but he kept fidgeting and then started fussing so I got up to make him a bottle. His fever was back again so I figured getting some liquids in was ideal.

I turned the light on in the living room and M's skin was not a great colour and it was really veiny (although I think the actual term is mottled? I could be wrong). Either way, mom instinct kicked in and I knew I had to take him in. So I book it downstairs to put clothes on and get him ready to go. He whimpered the entire drive to the hospital - about 20 minutes away.

We got right in, which was great, and we were put into a room with a door that closed and we saw the doctor right away too. They gave M some Tylenol for his fever and then strapped the pee bag onto him. I knew that wasn't going to fly because when Olivia had a UTI at this age, they did the catheter right away. However, that was when we were able to get right into Peds Emerg, and because it was 2am we were just in regular emerg this time.

Anyway, M drank his bottle, had a couple poopy diapers (increasingly soft poops) but still no pee. Had to get more formula from the nursing station because me in my stupidity only brought one bottle (although how was I to know I was going to be there forever).

By 8am, shift change, he still hadn't peed. At this point I had requested we do a catheter, but the nurse said that they don't like to do that. My theory now is that they didn't have a peds nurse on who felt comfortable cathing a tiny peener. I fortunately was able to get a nurse to sit with Mal so I could pee and move my car, as I had just parked in the 60 minute zone. Thankfully no tickets when i moved it 5 hours after we had got there.

The Peds Emerg section was open at 8, so they moved us over there where we sat and waited for the pediatrician to come see us. She spoke with the doctor we had originally seen, and was more than a little choked that he hadn't cath'd M yet. She expressed this to me, saying that if anything from the potentially bagged urine had come back they'd have to do a catheter sample anyway.

It took 3 different nurses 3 different tries to get the catheter in M. The poor guy was so not happy. The first two attempts were right after he had peed in the bag, so I felt like it was totally futile that we were waiting all night for that and then had to wait even longer to get pee in the catheter. Once the 3rd nurse came and did it, they got a huge sample which was great but the poor little dude had blood happening at the tip.

So we had to wait longer to get the results back, and by this point I was running low on wipes & diapers (I had a full travel wipes case and 6 diapers plus 1 of Olivia's when I got there... left with 0 of both). Then they needed our bed for a more important case, so we were shunted to the waiting room for a bit. Once another bed opened up we were moved back there, which is where the pediatrician explained that M had a very VERY bad UTI and required IV antibiotics. Because he was still drinking, they didn't need to admit him, but I have to bring him back around 10/11 for the next couple days to get the next doses of antibiotics. M was not a happy camper with the IV going in, and who can blame him. The nurse who did it was very good though, even if it took her a bit to find the vein she still got it all in and taped up right away. Once the IV antibiotics are done, they'll reassess and determine if he needs to be on oral ones as well or if the IV ones did the trick. He will also need a kidney ultrasound and an ultrasound to determine direction of how is urine is going (if it's going straight out or if it's going up into his kidneys)

I had consulted a doctor friend of mine about when to go in and the symptoms and stuff, and she was following up with me today after all of this and she was super confused as to why they didn't do any bloodwork to check on his kidneys. T is actually extremely pissed off about this whole situation, and has told me that if M has kidney problems then he's going to go after the doctors for malpractice (although I don't think he's got anything to go on for that).

All in all, I'm still exhausted and wish that none of this had happened. But I'm glad I trusted my mommy instincts that something was wrong.

While all of the fussiness from last night was happening, I had posted some clothing items on a local buy & sell which were apparently hot commodities. I received a bunch of messages for them, some people wanting to pick up that night, and it was getting to be too much. I had to verbally tell myself to relax and that it was okay, which T overheard me doing and it apparently freaked him out a bit that I was doing that. But it worked and I got myself settled.

I've realised that I don't get incredibly happy or excited about anything anymore, but I can get really sad & low easily. I think I'll need to bring this up with my doctor when we go on Wednesday for M's 3 month appointment. Le sigh. This PPD/PPA thing is just such an inconvenience. But here's hoping I can combat it and not be on meds for the rest of my life. Please.