The Backstory

K had stayed home from school on Monday due to the birthday barf incident but according to B (who stayed home with her) she seemed mostly fine- not 100% but no fever, no vomiting, etc so we were planning to send her back to school on Tuesday.

(warning- this may be TMI for people with low gross tolerances) Tuesday morning I woke her up and she had thrown up in the night (but hadn't cried), her nose was oozing a lovely green snot and her eyes were crusted shut. She was to put it mildly a hot mess so I started cleaning her up thinking she had pink eye- but her eyes were fine once I got them opened. So then I put her in the tub to wash her hair (since she smelled less than pleasant) She clearly wasn't going to school so B was going to take her to walk in hours at the pediatrician, thinking she had an ear infection and sinus infection. He goes to the doc- I take the boys to school and go to work.

About an hour later B calls and says her face is swollen on one side and the docs think it is an infection related to the HiB virus (which can be deadly) and that she needs to be seen in the ER, although it is not an emergency at this point. They expected the ER to admit her after she got there. B takes D to school (she is with him too at this point) and then drives K to the ER of Really Good Children's Hospital. She is seen by lots of folks and they think that it is not HiB (which is good) but a localized infection in her gum resulting from a tooth that came through and got infected. At this point she has no fever so they send her home with meds (the photos from the last entry are actually from when they got home from the ER-sorry)

Around 3:00, B notices she is laying on the floor like a lump and he takes her temperature and it is 103. He calls the ER, they tell him to bring her in and by the time they get there her temp is off their thermometer-so around 105. At that point they decide to admit her for IV antibiotics.

Today they have narrowed it down to couple of strains of bacteria so they have switched to a more targeted antibiotic and are running more screens to isolate the specific bacteria so they can send her home with a tailored antibiotic program. At this point, her gum, cheek, eyes and ears were all infected and (on a possibly unrelated note at least one tube in her ear probably needs replaced) so it is probably good they admitted her. She is in isolation though- B isn't allowed to take her out of the room and everyone coming in has to wear masks and isolation gowns. However, it seems it is more to protect the other kids- the consensus it if you are healthy she poses no risk but they don't want to chance one of the other babies getting it.

I was there for a little bit this afternoon. She is still swollen but is interacting some. They came to replace the IV and do a blood draw and she made the IV team sweat- it took 4 of us to hold her for the blood draw so she still has some fight in her. Afterwards she took a brief nap while I held her. She woke up alert and ready to play some with the Elmo balloon I brought her. When I left she was throwing it in the air and following it around the room. So it seems she is on the mend.

Right now the thought is they will discharge her tomorrow night, but we won't be surprised if they keep her till Friday . It all depends on how she is doing tomorrow.

Hopefully B will email me the photos he took and I can get them posted (hint hint- I know you are reading this)