Lee Ann I’ve been a bit MIA lately and I’m about to tell you why. Things were going so well with the kiddo and figuring out our day to day schedules and I was feeling like we finally had things figured out. And then the shit. hit. the. fan. Leilani is not a fussy kid whatsoever, and when she started fussing over the weekend almost 2 weeks ago, we knew something was up. So last Monday, April 27th my husband had to take the day off of work and take Leilani to the doctor, turns out she had an ear infection which is why she was not wanting to lay back and drink a bottle. Easy to figure out and she was quickly prescribed Amoxicillin. So my husband took her to pick up her prescription and spent the day with her. She was still pretty happy except for when we made her drink a bottle, that was a bit of a struggle but not too bad. I literally came home from work, with all the mom guilt built up from leaving when she was sick, and my husband had the dishes done, the laundry going and carpets vacuumed. And there in the middle of the floor, Leilani sat and played with her toys with a big smile on her face, watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (her favorite!). He made it look too easy. He was lucky, because for as many times as I’ve stayed home with her, sick or not, it wasn’t always that easy!!!
Tuesday night I struggled. I’ve heard some ‘out of date’ things being said to me within the past few months like how my husband shouldn’t be doing dishes, blah blah blah and then…my husband was told that I should have stayed home with our child when she was sick because it was my job. The woman was supposed to do these things and ‘that’s how it always was’. What made it worse was that a woman said it to him. I can’t tell you how irate I was because I was seeing red and steam was probably pouring out of my ears. What is wrong with people??? This is OUR child. And WE made the decision for him to stay home because I’ve been staying home with her every other time. This was literally the first full day at home with her, by himself, that my husband had ever had! If I could be a stay at home mom, I totally would – but we can’t afford that right now. And like I don’t already feel guilty enough that I have to leave my child with someone else to help raise her! Anyway…this could literally be another post, or 2 or 3, so I’ll leave it at that.
So we went on with our week making sure to offer more fluids and religiously giving her the pink bubble gummy medication. On that Thursday, I picked her up from daycare and about a half an hour before I had gotten there, she started to get really fussy. When I picked her up, I could tell something was wrong and she felt a little warm. I got her home and it was a battle. Between trying to get her to calm down and eat and taking a nap, it was very exhausting to say the least. She had a low-grade fever so we gave her some ibuprofen to bring her temp down and put a call in to our doctor to see what was going on. Within an hour we had an appointment set up for the next morning. When she woke up with a 102.8 fever, I started to get really worried. Her doctor said the ear infection wasn’t getting any better and that we should switch antibiotics. She switched her to Omnicef (cefdinir) which is very common, but a bit stronger. So I rushed over to Walgreens and picked up the prescription and was very anxious to get her started. I had taken the day off of work to be with her because I was so worried. She was very clingy and I had no intentions on putting her down if she didn’t want to be. So we snuggled all day, kept giving ibuprofen to control the fever and then started the Omnicef that night. And umm…I didn’t get anything else done, besides some work when she was sleeping, which was a lot of the time…so I guess I was pretty productive. My husband still made me look like a schmuck!
Leilani is a really good sleeper. But she woke up at about 4 a.m. and then again at 5 a.m. – at 5 a.m. I went to her and when I grabbed her I had to talk myself out of freaking out. She was REALLY warm. She runs warm when she sleeps normally, so like a degree or two sometimes…but she was at 104+ and I called to my husband to hurry up and get in her room. He did and he started to freak out. It’s funny to me that I can be internally freaking out but somehow find the power to talk my husband down when he is freaking out. I never used to be like that! So I put a cool washcloth on her and we gave her some cold milk which she gladly chugged and her temperature came down to 102+/101+ It was enough for both of us to stop freaking out, the ibuprofen kicked in and she slept a ton. We didn’t get much done that day, but keeping her comfortable was our main goal.
On Sunday mornings, my husband normally takes Leilani with him to his dad’s house, but since she was sick, we decided she would stay home. So when we got up, I grabbed her out of her crib and she didn’t feel warm. So I rushed her over to her changing table and checked her temperature. 98.5!!! Thank God!!! Her fever had broken and it was going to be a good day! Right? Then as I was feeding her breakfast, I noticed some pink dots along her hairline and between her eyes. She didn’t seem bothered by them so I didn’t think much of it.
Later that day, we went to give her a shower and noticed that there were more spots all over her body. So we put another call into the doctor. According to how we described it and the fact that the rash started right after the fever broke, they thought it was Roseola, which is a viral infection, so we set up an appointment to bring her in on Monday morning and continued with the antibiotics. I was going to go to work as soon as we were done at the doctor, it was supposed to be a quick follow up.
And then after having a rough night of sleeping, she woke up Monday morning and looked horrible. My poor baby had red splotches along her forehead and spots all over her face and body and she was so uncomfortable. It is SO hard to watch your baby be in pain or just plain not feel good!
That night, she seemed ‘fine’ – not better, not worse. Grammie went home and I decided to try giving her an oatmeal bath. So I found this recipe on the Nature’s Nurture blog and decided to try it. I was getting the bath ready while Kevin was undressing her in the other room when I heard, ‘Honey, you need to come look at this!’ Leilani had developed some weird purplish spots on her stomach that sort of wrapped around to her back. It looked like she had bruises. We got really worried and put in a call to the doctor…again. During the wait, I decided to just do the bath because we were waiting quite a while. She hasn’t been a fan of baths and we tend to give her showers instead but she seemed ok. When my husband got the phone call that her doctor was either going to call in a prescription for prednisone for her to try, or we could go to Children’s Hospital ER (which we could end up doing if the prednisone didn’t work), we made the choice to just take her to the ER. It was already past her bedtime, but she was a trooper and we were both freaking out but trying to act normal on the outside. My stomach was in knots and we were just hoping that someone could give us answers and that nothing too terrible was wrong!
The ER was busy. We patiently waited to get called back. Leilani chilled in the Tula and people watched with us. I’m not going to lie – I was totally judging the mom with the little kid about 2ish that brought her kid to the ER for him ‘pulling at his ears’ and yelling at him for running around and screaming while eating a giant bag of Skittles. Moron. I was so annoyed. We got called back, looked over and taken to a room. The nurses and doctors were all really awesome to us. They all loved Leilani and commented on how cute she was and how good she was being even though she didn’t feel well and it was way past her bedtime. An awesome doctor came in and told us the purplish areas were normal and we weren’t crazy (when we got there, those spots weren’t visible but then started to show up again while we sat in the room) and that it was capillaries and blood vessels being inflamed. Nothing to worry about. He made us feel at ease, saying that his youngest was 8 months old and his wife, who is not medical at all, would have freaked out if this happened to them. Made me feel like he was just a normal guy! He also said if this was his kid, he wouldn’t give the steroids. He even got another doctor to look at her to make sure that they were doing the right thing in NOT giving the prednisone. So we all agree, no steroids, and then they gave her a dose of ibuprofen and sent us on our way, telling us to follow up with her regular doctor within a day or so and that the medication just needed to work its way out of her system. We left the ER and I think we both took a deep breathe as we left. We could finally relax a little and know that we were doing the right thing. Leilani fell asleep in her car seat rather quickly and we realized we hadn’t eaten anything, and since it was Cinco de Mayo – what better place to go than Taco Bell! Ha! I quickly ate my chicken burrito and needed to go to bed. It was well after midnight before we finally got to sleep!
The plan for the next morning was to let Leilani sleep in, take her to daycare for a few hours and I would leave work a little early to pick her up. She woke up on Wednesday morning (at her normal time) and looked a bazillion times better! I honestly can’t attribute it to any one thing. Did the ibuprofen help? I’m sure. We didn’t give her the dose of Benadryl before bed so it wasn’t that. Was it the oatmeal bath? I’m sure it helped! Whatever it was, I was so happy to see her face was just slightly red and her body had a lot less spots. She did great at daycare and was starting to eat and drink more too. We had a doctor’s appointment set up for 9:40 the next morning and things were looking up! I gave her another oatmeal bath and she actually enjoyed it! She learned how to splash the water and was smiling!!! There were glimpses of my baby coming back out! This whole time, all I wanted was my baby back! I wanted her silly smiles and giggles and hugs and kisses all the time instead of just some of the time! And it looked as though that was happening. She even went to bed easily like she did before she got sick!
Thursday morning I took Leilani to the doctor – they checked her over and made sure that there were no hives/lesions in her mouth. If there were, we had to give the steroids. She was smiley and just had a bit of a runny nose but nothing major. She went to daycare around 10:30 and I was off to work! She did great! She was back to drinking full bottles and besides being wiped out from the Benadryl, she was acting ‘normal’. She lost her voice a little from it being dry in the house overnight, but that was about it. When I picked her up from daycare she was all smiles and clapped for me when I came in 🙂 I love that reaction 🙂 I got lots of hugs and kisses too! We went home and she took a great nap, ate a big dinner and drank lots of milk! Finally! I rocked with her a bit and laid her down in her crib when she was sleepy. She decided it was time to party then. Sitting up in her crib, clapping her pacifiers together and against the back of her crib. The next thing you know, she was folded over in half and sleeping. LOL! I don’t know how she does it, and I don’t know how that’s comfortable, but I went in and unfolded her and she never even flinched. She had a great night of sleep! She did fuss a tiny bit around 4 a.m. but I put her pacifier back in her mouth and she went right back to sleep.
And that brings me to today. Thanks for sticking with me if you’re still here. Today Leilani turns 11 months old! How do I have an almost 1 year old already?? Time is flying by! And absolutely nothing could have prepared me for all of this craziness! You don’t truly understand the ‘I would trade places if I could’, ‘I wish I could take away your pain’, etc. until it happens to you. I’m not going to lie, I cried a few times. I was scared as hell. I tell people that my mama bear is fierce, and I mean that. Don’t mess with my kid. I would do absolutely anything to keep my baby happy and healthy! I never knew you could love someone so much! Don’t get me wrong, I love my husband SO so much! But that little girl of ours…she’s something else! She’s a bright, beautiful and spunky little thing. So loving and happy all the time! And when she’s out of character because she’s not feeling well? It just breaks my damn heart. I know many of you have had to go through something or another if you’re already a parent. And if you’re expecting or thinking about having kids? It will happen to you to someday, but no one will be able to explain it to you so you understand it. You’ll understand it when it happens to you. Being a parent is hard. I am emotionally and physically exhausted from the past 2 weeks, but waking up this morning and seeing a smile on my daughter’s face as she gave me a hug when I picked her up makes it all worth it! I can’t even tell you how much I love her because there are not enough words! So happy 11 months to my peanut and I’m so happy that she is on the mend and will hopefully be 100% by the time we fly out to DC next weekend!
[…] my blog, you probably read about her ear infection and the horrible reaction to the antibiotics in this post. The Monday after that post (May 11th), when the hives were gone, we had her checked out by an ENT […]