The ick

I feel like I can finally breathe a sigh of relief. This week has been exhausting. Remember how we thought both kids had strep? Well Stasa's culture was the only one that came back positive and they did Lexi's twice and both times it was negative, but since her major symptoms were vomiting and a mild fever and Stasa had it, they diagnosed her with strep and sent us on our way with two prescriptions of Amoxicillin. Stasa responded immediately to the meds and bounced back like she always does. Lexi did not.

She spent all of Sunday alternating between vomiting and blowing out diaper after diaper. Then Tom reminded me that she had been having diarrhea the week before. So we quit worrying about food (food? ha! she hadn't eaten since that Saturday morning anyway) and focused on forcing fluids and monitoring her intake and output. Tuesday wasn't the best day. She ended up only drinking maybe 5 oz of fluid and had one 1/2 oz pee. After a call to the advice nurse we were sent to the ER. They ended up testing her and she was borderline dehydrated and had low sugar levels so she got an IV of glucose and then another of saline. They wanted a stool sample, but of course she didn't cooperate while there. They sent Tom home with a container to collect a sample and told him to bring it in the next morning.

Tom did as they said and got the sample, packed up the poop cup and Lexi, and drove back out to the hospital Wednesday morning. Then the hospital sent him on a wild goose chase, with the cup of poo and Lexi in tow, all over the place and every department gave him the run around. He was told that we weren't given the right type of container for a stool sample and that since the sample was from Wednesday and not Tuesday (the day she was in the ER), our insurance wouldn't cover the tests. Really? So he handed them the poop and told them to dispose of it and came home. I can't say I blame him. They took the poo cup and in turn gave him a bag of little mini containers to collect a new stool sample.

I came home mid-day Wednesday to relieve Tom and finish my work from home. Lexi was just going down for a nap and woke up after about an hour because she blew out of another diaper. She was inconsolable and finally calmed down while laying on me. I just propped her up on my chest and kept working and after awhile realized she hadn't moved or whined. I pulled my phone out and snapped a quick pic of her face and saw that she was passed out. Poor thing. I worked with her in my arms until Tom left to get Stasa. I kept holding her until my arms went numb and then transferred her to the couch.



Thursday morning I took her in for a follow-up at our pediatrician's office. Lexi dropped about 3 pounds and between the not eating and all of the vomiting and diarrhea I wasn't that surprised and neither were they. We saw one of the nurse practioners, who we love, and she was kind of ticked off that the urgent care put her on the antibiotic without a positive strep test and without doing any other tests. We got permission to throw out the Amox for Lexi since she didn't have any strep symptoms. After checking her over, she said Lexi looked great and it would probably take a couple of days for her appetite to come back. We still don't know what she had, but it was obviously some sort of virus and I'm just thankful that she's feeling better and is her normal self again. She woke up this morning with a full wet diaper, which she hasn't done in over a week. I never thought I would get so excited over what's in my child's diaper, but I did.