That first trip is the scariest.

Until this week, I felt very lucky that Viv has been so healthy, especially as she wasn't breastfed, and without clostrum, she may as well be thrown into a pig wallow in Mexico for all the immune system she has. She had a mild case of croup that cleared up on its own, requiring only occasional treatments with albuterol delivered via nebulizer and her demeanor never really changed during that short illness.

She woke up Sunday, however, with a fever and seemed listless and out of sorts.  We called the doctor that night, but she was out of town, so we spoke with the consulting nurse at Children's.  She told us to just keep an eye on her, especially as she had no other symptoms, but she vomited twice that night and couldn't sleep, and was running a higher fever the next day, which was, of course, a holiday.  Another call to the consulting nurse, another keep an eye out.  We made an appointment for Tuesday, and my lovely pediatrician examined her and took a urine sample, which looked suspicious.  Her fever was 102.5 by then, and she vomited up the Tylenol we tried to give her to take down the fever, all over me, the doctor, the floor and her own clothes.  However, by then, the fever had climbed to an alarming 104. 3.  She was so hot it was difficult to hold her, so we tried to cool her using cold washcloths.  The doctor's office was out of fever reducing suppositories so the pediatrician actually ran to the pharmacy for us.  It was quite above and beyond.

However, by the time she returned, Viv was not improved, so she called Children's and they asked that we bring the poodle over.  A slightly tense drive during which I was convinced that Viv was not, in fact, sleeping, but was in a coma, and we were in the ER, but I couldn't have felt more low rent, as I hadn't anticipated the barf episode, and had no change of clothes.  So, I carried in my sick baby, swaddled only in a diaper and an industrial towel from the doctor's office.  However, the suppository had, blessedly, started to work and she began to improve.  They did give her a teeny, tiny hospital gown, which was actually quite fetching, but then Shelly arrived with actual clothes.

After a four hour wait, during which they took a urine sample via catheter (which I hope to never, ever have to do to her again), the urinary tract infection was confirmed and we were sent home after a primary antibiotic dosing.  I just got a call that it is an E. coli infection, the most common of the childhood urinary tract diseases.  The next morning, she was hugely improved, her normal, happy self.  Now we just have to take her back to Children's for a screening ultrasound to examine her ureter for defects.

I am curious as to why she didn't sleep last night and why she had worked herself into a frenzy before bedtime.  Barfy McSpewy couldn't keep down her antibiotic until the second go, so she was grumpy until we finally got her to sleep around 10:30.   Once she was asleep, though, I kept prodding her to make sure she didn't have a concussion, because, you see, she fell off the bed yesterday.  I set her in the MIDDLE of a pile of laundry, surrounded by bedding and clothes, and I didn't even know she could roll over the way she did. Why do children always celebrate milestones with grievous personal injury?  And why do things always happen so quickly when one has merely turned one's back to grab a blanket?  Anyway, she was, and is, fine, but I was terribly afraid that she was going to bleed on the brain, so I kept checking her eyes and pupils.  Right now I'm just letting her sleep.  Poor kid deserves it.