Zoey goes to the ER

(Zoey in the ER taken with my camera phone. Not a good one but had to document)

Well yesterday was a long day for me that I would like to never happen again. On Tuesday Zoey had a fever of 103.5. I decided to just try to manage it with Tylenol and Motrin and see how it went. The first two temperature readings were done rectally. Then On Wednesday I borrowed a friends ear thermometer and the highest I got was 102. So thought we were doing a little better. Last night I noticed she was really hot, took it rectally and it was 104. So I called the pedi after hours and since Zoey is not quite one yet they said I should take her to either Urgent Care or ER. I decided to take her to the Urgent Care since it was closer and that way they could check her ears and throat and we would be done. I don't rush my kids to the doctor anymore because I am always told it is a virus or allergies and nothing we can do. Plus the girls (knock on wood) have not had an ear infection or really been that sick except for a few fevers here and there. After the doctor checked her out and said she looks good probably a virus. I had mentioned that nurse on call said they might prick her foot and run a blood test. SO, after TWO pricks and LOTS of squeezing of her heel and them running the test results twice she had LOW White Blood Cell count and LOW Platelets (3 other things were low too) and he suggested I take her on to Children's Hospital. OK I was a little freaked out at the possibilities of what that could mean since I could tell he was concerned. So I called my good friend Kelly who is a PA and so is her husband. I wanted to prepare myself and wanted to know what it could mean. She did a really good job at calming me down but I could tell something could be serious. So after awhile she told me it "could" mean Leukemia among other things too. OK FREAK OUT! But I wanted to know what we were looking at. Since that is what my Grandfather died of in a matter of days from diagnosis, I was a little, can you say, on edge. But since I was by myself I knew I had to be strong for Zoey. From the minute I walked into Dell Children's Hospital until I left, the staff, nurses and doctors were nothing but FABULOUS!!!!! I was completely impressed by how great they were with Zoey and so incredibly friendly. I didn't have to wait long. They wanted to do their own blood tests, a urine test (for a UTI) and we decided to test for Flu too. After the results we would go from there. Since Zoey is so young they had to use a catheter to get her urine, I hope I NEVER have to experience that again and they drew blood from her hand right after that. It was so hard to watch because nothing I could do helped. As I waited those LONG 30 minutes for the results, if you know me at all, you know I was sitting there preparing for the worse already trying to figure out how in the world I was going to make this work. Next thing I know the nurse very casually said the tests came back normal, say what???? How can that be? At the urgent care her Platelets were 85 and here they were 141 (150 is normal) so still a tad bit low but nothing they were worried about. Of course I was extremely grateful but still confused. Everything else came back normal too so we were sent on our way. We go today (Thursday) to our pedi for a follow up. Unfortunately today Zoey has been doing nothing but crying. I am hoping it is just due to overtiredness. I sure would not want to go through this again!

Just a reminder to me how lucky we are to have 4 healthy children.