Thursday, January 27, 2011

"Pitiful Pearl" Ellie

Last Tuesday, 1/18/11, I went to Ladies' Bible Class at church and then decided to go into the office to get some work done. They have babysitting for the children during Bible Class and it's available 'til 2:00, so it was a convenient time for me to get some stuff done while Ellie was having fun with her beloved Ms. Maria and her buddy, Trey.

While there, my cell phone rang with an unrecognized number. I almost didn't answer but said, "what if it's the school?" Sure enough, it was the school nurse. Well, a substitute nurse actually. Anyway, he said that Katie was in the nurse's office with a fever and not feeling well. So, I went down the hall to get Ellie and off we went to get poor Katie. When they called, her fever was around 100.5. By the time I got to the school about 40 minutes later (ugh....since I was all the way at the church building, which is about 25 minutes away, by the time I got everything together and got Ellie, it was about 40 minutes before I got to Katie!) her fever was around 103! I took her straight to the doctor. They tested for flu & strep, both of which were negative. They did diagnose her with the beginnings of an ear infection, but the doctor said she thought it was a virus causing the fever, not the ear infection. They did give me something to treat the ear infection, but we were going to just have to ride out the virus.

She ended up getting sick one time that night, which always makes me nervous after we ended up having to take her into the ER that one time when she couldn't stop throwing up. Thankfully, it was just 1 time.

During the night, she woke up some not able to sleep but seemed to feel quite a bit better. Still a bit feverish maybe. Well, once, I woke up to see the shadow of Gracie in the hallway. She said she had a headache and couldn't sleep! UGH. She wasn't feverish and went right back to sleep after some Motrin, but I was just sure she was getting sick as well. The next morning, Katie was obviously staying home and I decided to keep Gracie home too...just in case...even though she was now feeling fine. She ended up being okay.

That afternoon, Katie & Ellie both slept a really long time! Katie was feeling good but was maybe still a bit feverish. I just figured her little body needed sleep after being sick. I didn't think too much about Ellie sleeping so long either. HOWEVER, about 30 minutes after Ellie got up, nestled in MY bed in between me & Gracie, she threw up! It all went downhill from there! :( Poor thing, between about 3:45 & 10:00, she threw up like 9 times and was, at this point, not being able to throw up much. She was practically begging for something to drink but I'd only let her have a little bit, then she'd throw it up. It was pitiful!

Finally, about 10:00, Chris took her in to the ER. She just couldn't keep throwing up like that. They were there from around 10-4:30. It was a looooong night for us all, except Gracie & Katie, who were oblivious to it all! I hated not being with Ellie, but someone had to be home with Gracie & Katie. Plus....I had plans to go out of town the next day....UGH. Timing!

Here are some "Pitiful Pearl" (as my mom would say) pictures of my sweet little girl. You can see how weird her coloring was. They did a chest x-ray, a catheter, a cat scan, and an IV for dehydration & to give her meds to stop her vomiting. Poor baby.
She is better now!!!!!! Thankfully!

1 comment:

Heather said...

Oh my goodness! Bless their sweet hearts (and yours!) I'm glad everyone is better now. That virus is bad news. It has been going around our town, too, and lots of kids have missed several days of school because of it.