Freaking February.

Do you wanna know how we ended up here yesterday:

Well, I’m about to tell you.

Monday afternoon Leah was less than interested in a snack of any sort. She really didn’t eat breakfast, and she had a little “nami” for lunch (salami), but that was it. So I thought she’d be famished when she woke up from her nap. Not so. She didn’t go to the pantry once. At dinner she said she wasn’t hungry either. At that point I knew she was probably getting something.

Freaking February.

I managed to cram two popsicles down her, but from dinner on she was not my normal buggie. She was clingy, and sad, and the tell-tale sign of sickness, she was cuddly!

I figured I’d wake up Tuesday, or perhaps Monday night with a pretty sick kiddo.

I had no idea.

After sleeping til 8 (a personal record for Leah), I went to get her when I heard her start to stir. Usually when I go get her she is standing up jumping and throwing pooh and her blankets out of her crib. She asks for Duncan. She gets excited when she sees him. She tells me to turn her sound maching “opf” (off) and downstairs we go to find breakfast. Not so. She was laying in the fetal position, moaning, and looking oh so pathetic.

I knew it. I knew it was coming. But I still had no idea.

My plan was to see what she would eat or not eat, drink or not drink, and to eventually take her temperature.

We came downstairs and I turned her show on, got her some jello and water, and we cuddled. Mid bite of about the fourth bite of jello… it all came back up. Good think it was lime green, too.

Ok, so she’s pretty sick. And she was pretty hot. But also miserable, so I didn’t want to bug her with a thermometer just yet. After about an hour of cuddling and TV she got up and wanted to go downstairs. Yay, I thought to myself. It’s not so bad, she still wants to play. We got downstairs, and she started crying and wanted me to pick her up. So I did, and we sat in Kyle’s man cave recliner and rocked for so long without any movement from her at all. I had to take a picture to see if she was sleeping or not. This is what I saw:

And the worst part was… she wasn’t sleeping. She was moaning. I saw this picture and cried. But we kept rocking because that seemed to be comforting her. All the while I was thinking, at some point I am going to have to make her mad so I can figure out just how bad this fever is. I was sweating holding her, so I knew it was bad.

When I finally had to do it… 103.9.

Ok, so that’s bad. And she was just sobbing.

To the doctor we went:

Sweet little story… she held that graham cracker for an hour and a half without eating it and without letting me take it away. Poor babe.

So we got to the doctor and got right in… apparently 103.9 means you don’t have to wait. He tested for RSV, the flu, strep, and looked in her ears. Nothing. I was actually praying for an ear infection, that’s an easy fix. But nope. So to have that high of a fever with no obvious explanation meant we had to go to the hospital.

And the day that started out bad got worse. Not that I could do anything about it, they had to do all the poking and prodding they could to find out what was the matter. But Leah was not having it… as you can imagine. We were both in tears a majority of the day. She ended up having to have a catheter to rule out a UTI… and that didn’t work. I could have thrown the very nice nurse through the glass by that point. So for the rest of our time there she had to wear a bag to hopefully catch something they could test for a UTI. Do you know how hard it is to get a dehydrated baby to go to the bathroom? Not easy, my friends. Not to mention she screamed every time she did have to go out of fear or pain… I’m not sure which.

In between the pain though, she was slightly entertained by a few things:

They had PBS, thank you, Jesus.

She thought the remote was a phone, so she made some calls.

She figured out how to change the channels… and call the nurses. A lot.

We both smiled at least once, I have proof. But this might have been it.

 

We clocked a lot of miles in this little red wagon.

And they had a game. How cute is that gown?? (despite the reason she was wearing it).

Finally, at 5 (we had been there since 11) she went. I felt it first in her diaper and almost threw a fit. “If this darn bag didn’t catch any pee……..” I stomped out to the nurses in tears because Leah screamed through going to the bathroom and I was afraid it was all for not. But the bag caught enough. And an hour later we learned… the test was negative.

So there you have it. She just has a big, long name virus. Basically, the flu, only not because that test was negative. But the same stuff.

We had a day of it.

Freaking February. But don’t worry, I have declared today a mommy, Leah, Duncan, and daddy (when he gets home) day of fun! Whatever she has wanted today… she has gotten. And Duncan, too, because he was locked in his cage all day yesterday. She hasn’t cried or moaned once, and has even jumped. She’s not 100%, but she’s miles from yesterday. She’s even making faces at me:

And playing pee-a-boo. And smiling!

Now, before I go, I have to say a word or two about her dog. Yesterday morning when she woke up, I think he realized before I did how seriously sick she was. He would not:

and I mean would not:

leave her side. He sat by the couch and stared at her the whole time she watched TV. He laid on my feet while I rocked her. And at one point her brought her each and every one of his toys, my sports bra, my sock, and this:

and laid them all on her lap. He was doing everything he knew… and it melted my heart. When I had to lock him up when we left you would have thought I was beating him to death. He cried, and barked, and scratched the crate door, and turned in circles. He was not happy. But when we came home it was quite the reunion. Leah had been asking for him all day, and I think they were both relieved to be back together.

He still has not left her side today. Not for a second. I had to literally pull him out of her room when she went down for a nap.

He wasn’t even begging for food! Just laying there, holding on to her chair making sure everything was okay. However, because it is “mommy, Leah, Duncan, daddy day of fun”… Leah was allowed to feed him and he was allowed to eat it.

No one cries today. That is our only rule.

Stupid, freaking February.