48 Hours

Brian went to Dallas this past weekend for our friend's wedding.  He unfortunately got stuck in Salt Lake Sunday night because of a volcano.  Meanwhile, early Monday morning (3am) Aubrey woke up with some diarrhea.  In the morning, it was clear she was sick with that and a fever.  Knowing that it is very important for Aubrey to stay hydrated because of her HCM, I called the doctor and got an appointment to see a pediatrician at 2:30 pm.  Brian was in Seattle by then, but unreachable until then.  When I took her in they told me they wanted her admitted to the hospital immediately to get an iv going.  So a nurse walked me over to the Children's hospital (same building as the pediatrician.)  It was very upsetting for Aubrey to have so many strange faces poking her and listening to her heart and measuring her and weighing her.  So it took a long time (a few hours) to get her set up, but eventually they gave her a mild sedative and she calmed down so she could have an echocardiogram and get an iv started.  

Her heart looked about the same as the last few times.  The pressure gradient was a little higher in the outflow to the aorta, but that is easily explained by the slight dehydration she was experiencing.  Brian finally got there during the echo.  I felt so relieved to have him with me.  That first night in the hospital was pretty rough.  Aubrey didn't sleep that well once the sedation wore off.  The nurses were constantly coming in to give her medicine, check her vitals, or just stop the beeping machines every time she moved and disrupted one of her lines.  Aubrey wouldn't sleep unless one of us was in the crib with her, so we took turns squeezing in the crib and stretching out on the tiny little pull out bed for parents!  Needless to say, none of us got much sleep Monday night.  

Her fever went away in the night and by noon the next day she had had her last loose bowel movement.  On Tuesday they had to redo her iv, the first one slipped out, and it took 3 tries--and a LOT of crying--before they got a vein.  I cried, too.  It is so hard to see your baby hurting and not be able to do anything to make it better.  We all slept much better Tuesday night, they kept the tubing in her arm, but unhooked the iv, so there was no more beeping that night.  They finally let us go home at noon today (Wednesday.)  And we rejoiced! 

It wasn't a very fun couple of days.  They were worried she had some nasty virus (she didn't) so she was confined to her room and couldn't play anywhere else until a couple hours before we left.  The one thing that Brian and I were so thankful for was that the Olympics were on tv this week! The timing was great for us to get lots of time to watch.  Aubrey Ella seems very happy to be home, but it is becoming a struggle to get her to take her medicine.  I am afraid the hospital has made her more opinionated.  She got really good at saying "Ma Ma!"