Boards, RSV+, and (not) a Bridal Shower

Oh what a week it has been!  Thankfully the days move on and everyone is A-OK! 

BOARDS

Dave has been studying like a mad man for his boards.  He has to be at work every morning at 6:30 am in Springfield, he gets home around 3:35, he plays with us and eats with us, then he goes to school to study until he can't keep his eyes open any longer, comes home to sleep, and starts it all over the next day.  We were very anxious for all of this to be over! 

RSV+

This all started a little over 2 weeks ago.  Tenley started having diarrhea pretty bad and was going through 8-10 diapers a day.  It was crazy!  I finally decided to take her into the Dr on the 22nd.  Up to this point, Tenley was eating and acting fine, except for the diarrhea.  Dr. Calvert ordered stool samples, which were tons of fun....let me tell you...especially when your baby has very watery diarrhea! 

After we left the Dr., Tenley went downhill pretty quick.  She stopped eating, started sleeping a lot, and her activity level was very low.  All night Saturday night I couldn't sleep because I felt like we needed to take her in.  I decided we should go to church.  While we were sitting in church and just kept feeling like I needed to take her in.  So we left right after the sacrament and took her to the walk-in clinic.  I tried to explain to the nurse practitioner that she was not ok and something was going on.  He pretty much told me that she looked fine, she was just teething and that she must be eating because she looked hydrated to him even though she has lost 1/2 a pound since Thursday.  He did run a RSV swab on her and it came back negative.  So we went home discouraged but I still felt like something was wrong with Tenley.

Monday came and we found out that 2 of the stool samples didn't work....they said we did them wrong...but the other 3 were fine so I don't know what happened.  Anyway, we had to go in and get more to do.  Dave went to get them with Tenley and asked if Tenley could see the Dr while he was there.  Dr Calvert was not in so we saw the nurse practitioner who said that we should try her on Soy formula and probiotics.

Tuesday came and Tenley was just getting worse.  She still was not eating and was still having bad diarrhea.  I had to work at the Y so I took her into child watch.  When I went to pick her up, the child watch girls kept saying, something is wrong with her.  She just laid on Micah the entire time and both of them just confirmed what I knew....something was wrong.  As I was walking out, 4 other people who see her on a daily basis also asked what was wrong with her, 2 even thought I was holding a different baby because she just didn't look right.  Of course this scared me so I called the Dr.  I spoke to the nurse who told me that Dr Calvert had looked over the notes from the nurse practitioner and agreed with them so there was no reason for her to be seen.  I was so mad.  I called my Mom and Dad and they were all but ready to ask all my brothers to donate some money to get me on a plane to fly home or to take cash to a Dr and say, look, I have cash I can pay you, please do something.  We wondered if because I was on Medicaid they didn't want to look at her.  I was so frustrated and stressed because I was suppose to do a bridal shower that night!

(not) a Bridal Shower

I took Tenley home and all she wanted to do was sleep.  I would set her down to change her diaper, and she would fall asleep.  I would set her down on the couch, she would fall asleep.   She just couldn't stay awake.  I decided I needed to take her into St. Johns ER.  I put Tenley down in bed so that I could try to get as much done on the bridal shower that I could before I left.  I had a lot of cooking/baking to do and games to get put together.  Luckily I got up at 2:30 that morning to get a lot of it done while the kids were sleeping!  I got most of it done before it was time to go...we were meeting Dave in Springfield when he got off of work.  I had to call Kerri to throw a bridal shower blind.  She just had to go to my house and try to piece everything together.  She is so great!

We showed up at the ER around 3:30.  They sent us to acute care to treat her "drainage in her eyes"  which had just happened to show up on the way down to Springfield.  The ER lady told me that if she is seen for the drainage, she could send me to acute care which they would be able to get me right in, but if I was there for the diarrhea I would have to wait in the ER for at least 4 hours before I could be seen.  So Tenley went into acute care to have her "drainage in her eyes" looked at.  The ER lady also told me that once we were back they couldn't send us back out to the waiting room so once we were back, we could tell them everything that was going on.  But she said, "Shhh...don't tell them I told you that".  I was very grateful!

It was funny once we got back when they realized that we weren't there about the drainage in her eyes.  But, just like the ER lady had said, they couldn't send us back out.  Well, the PA and the nurses were AWESOME!  They agreed with me that something wasn't right and they wanted to find out what was wrong.  They did a full workup on her.  They did EVERYTHING!  She had to do x-rays and was put in this thing.... (this is NOT Tenley)

It was so sad not because she was in it, but because she wanted to cry but was so weak she couldn't.  She just kinda fussed and again, would fall asleep until we moved her.  I felt so bad.

They had to do swabs, an IV (again, she wanted to cry but just couldn't) , some kind of stool something, and had to cath her.  It took 3 different people to try to cath her.  Tenley finally got mad enough that she was able to fight them while they tried to cath her but she had no tears.  She was most definitely dehydrated.

Once all the tests were done, she was able to get fluids and relax.  They had to give her 2 bags of fluid because she was so dehydrated. 

I was so grateful for the Drs and nurses.  They were so great and actually listened to me, believed me, and did something about it!  I had one that just kept saying, "Whenever you feel in your gut that something is wrong, you bring her in!  Even if it is the very next day...you just bring her in".

After 51/2 hours, after I had missed the entire shower, and Dave did not get to study at all for his boards in 2 days, we found out that Tenley had a UTI, an upper respiratory infection, severely dehydrated, and possible rotavirus.  They let us go after Tenley had a round of antibiotic.

All the way home, I was upset about missing the shower and dreading going home to a disaster in my kitchen.  When I got home, my kitched was clean.  Kerri had cleaned it for me.  She'll never know how much that meant to me!  I don't know how I am going to get by without her being here for me whenever I need her!  I love you Kerri!  Thanks so much for all you did and do!

On Wednesday, St. John's called to let us know that Tenley did have RSV and Dave's CI let him have the day off to study for his boards!

Dave was able to get a blessing from our dear friend, Weston Wilkins and then Weston helped Dave give Tenley a blessing.

Thursday, the nurse from Dr. Calvert's office called to let us know that nothing was found in the stool samples.  She did not have rotaivrus or anything else!  YAY!  I asked her about the RSV and what to look for if she got worse and she told me all they symptoms Tenley was having.  So, we were off to see the Dr.

Meanwhile, Dave was taking his boards!!!  HOLY SMOKES!  Now all he has to do is finish his clinical and WALK and he is officially a PHYSICAL THERAPIST!! 

At the Dr, Tenley's oxygen level was in the 80's and her lungs sounded terrible.  We did a breathing treatment, which helped, but her oxygen was still low.  We gave her another breathing, but still her oxygen was low.  The Dr told me we could not go with her oxygen that low.  The Dr. thought that it should go up after awhile so we just hung out in the Drs office waiting for it to go up.  It never did get to 96 but it was staying between 90 and 94 so she thought she should be fine to go home but we would have to do breathing treatments every 4 hours.  Luckily our insurance bought us a machine and were were set to go home and do the breathing treatments!

Isn't the little mask so cute?  Giving breathing treatments are much easier at night than during the day!

Friday we went in to have Tenley checked.   Her left lung still wasn't sounding right but her oxygen was staying around 90 and 94 so we were good to go home for the weekend!  YAY!

So this RSV thing is just something that happened to happen on top of whatever else is going on with the diarrhea.  On Thursday when I went into Dr. Calvert, we started talking about Tenley's history with eating and we recalled when she was first born and her stomach was so bloated that she ordered an xray, which she said she never does with gas but because she was so bloated, she wanted to see if something else was going on.  Since then, Tenley has had problems with every stage of eating.  So, Dr. Calvert wants to do a full work up on her even though she is kinda young to do it.  She said she wanted to test her for siliac disease, CF, and some other things.  When she said CF I started crying so of course she asked me what was up.  I then told her Dave's family history with CF.  I told her that I was tested to see if I carried it when I was pregnant with Tenley and my results came back negative.  So for Tenley to have CF, it would have to be a freak thing.  But still, she wants to run some more tests to figure out what is going on.  So, once we get the RSV and UTI gone, we are going to be doing a full work up on Tenley.  We are praying nothing comes up!

For now though, Tenley is doing much better.  She is back to following the kids everywhere and she actually ate some cereal!  She still isn't drinking much milk but she loves pedialyte.  Hopefully we get this little girl back to her little happy self!