First Unscheduled Trip to the Doctor

Naomi has been cutting her molars and had two pop through this week. She started running a low fever on Tuesday and has been generally cranky all week. By Friday night she was definitely not feeling well and on Saturday morning she woke up with a fever of 104. This was not a case of molars coming through, but something more. I called the doctor's office and was able to get her in a couple hours later. Unfortunately, we left the office with no clear answers, but the doctor suspected it was either Roseola or a bladder infection. If it was Roseola, then her fever would most likely go down by today and she would begin breaking out in a rash. That is what we were hoping for because if that didn't happen we were going to have to take her into the hospital today and have her catheterized to get a clean urine sample to test for a bladder infection.

About 2:00 a.m., she ended up in bed with us and was still running a fever, but not as hot as she had been. She tossed and turned for a while, but eventually fell back to sleep and when she woke up this morning her temp had come down from the day before, but it was still 101.5. I was still hopeful that it would continue to fall and the rash would appear, so I put her down for her morning nap and when she woke up I immediately knew we were hospital bound. I quit taking her temp when it reached 101.6 and called the doctor's call center. Shortly after noon Naomi and I headed to the hospital.

This is not the first time I've had to take a child to the hospital for lab work, but I was pleasantly surprised at how quiet it was on a Sunday afternoon. It took us about 10 minutes to go through admitting and we waited about 2 minutes to get into the lab. Things got a tad more complicated at that point as the orders the doctor had verbally given me the day before didn't match the orders in the computer. I was telling the lab tech that the doctor specifically said I was to take her in for a catheterized urine test, but the orders were written for a simple urine test. There was part of me that just wanted them to do the simple test because I didn't want my baby to be catheterized. On the other hand, the doctor was very specific in explaining that they needed a 'clean' urine sample to get an accurate test completed. After a couple phone calls, the lab tech got everything straightened out and we were then waiting for someone from pediatrics to come down and complete the cath urine test.

Here is where I'm going to give big kudos to St. Francis Hospital lab and Children's Hospital. These people were awesome!!!! They were quick, friendly and compassionate. Naomi was certainly not a happy camper during the procedure, but one of the nurses completely won her over and Naomi very willingly gave her a kiss after the procedure was over :-) It wasn't the first time I've ever taken a child there for some type of test and they've always had great bedside manner. Today may have been even better and for that I'm grateful.

Naomi and I left the hospital knowing we would be waiting 1-2 hours for the test results. And now kudos to the call center nurse who was very obviously checking the computer on a regular basis for those test results. I'm quite certain we didn't wait an hour before she called to tell me that Naomi does in fact have a bladder infection. She had already called the doctor and had the prescription ready to phone in once I told her which pharmacy to call. She gave me some further information regarding the medication and we were done.

This is Naomi's first illness since coming home and it hasn't been pretty. Seriously, couldn't she do something simple like a cold? However, she has had her first dose of antibiotic and now we wait for the fever, whining and crankiness to disappear and for the old Naomi to return.