How NOT to spend your Saturday night

I find it funny that *Benjamin* is our child with all the diagnosed medical problems (allergies, breathing issues, etc.) but it is *Talia* that I have now driven at top speed twice to deliver into the hands of trained medical personnel. Yes, we spent 4 hours last night in the emergency room.

Don't worry, she's ok, evidently it is just a virus.

Yesterday afternoon I woke Talia up from her nap almost an hour after her usual 4:00 wake-up time. She was sleepy-eyed and sweaty. I thought she had merely been sleeping hard. After holding an unusually cuddly, hot baby for about 10 minutes I said to Seth, "does she feel hot to you?" Feeling her forehead he responded, "she definitely feels warm." A few minutes later she was still not seeming herself. I decided to take her temperature.

Those of you who are accustomed to taking temperatures in young children with the standard digital drug store thermometer will know that once in place, the thermometer's display will generally begin to read 93, 95, jumping up in decreasing intervals until it reaches the highest temperature. I believe upon first contact with my burning baby the thermometer read 101.7. And it only increased from there. The end result was that Talia had a fever raging at 103.5!

Fearing some complication with her tubes, I gave her some Tylenol and called the pediatrician on-call. After asking some questions and discovering that, even with the high fever, she was pale and not at all flushed, he advised us to go to the hospital.

After assessing our options we decided that Seth would have to stay home with Benjamin while I took Talia in to the ER. We were soon on our way, a pale, shallow-breathing, lethargic little girl in the backseat and me trying my best to remain calm despite my rushing adrenaline. Once at the hospital we were ushered straight back to a triage room and from there were taken quickly to a private room in the pediatric ER.

Talia was in strong opposition to the many pokes and prods she received over the next hour. :) I know she was just overwhelmed and scared, not to mention feeling badly. The examination (her ears looked fine), blood draw, chest x-rays, and other sundry procedures were overwhelming to us both! During this time they also took her temperature again: 104.5 (with Tylenol!) I was thankful we were in good hands by that point.

Shortly after the flurry of activity was over, Seth was able to join us. He had been able to leave Benjamin with some friends that live near us. He brought dinner for us both (I was about to start fixing dinner at 5:30 when this all began--by the time 7:30 rolled around we were both getting a little hungry!) We also tried to feed Talia some mashed potatoes and veggies I had thrown in her bag before we left the house, but she was not exactly ravenous.

After that we just waited...waited for reports to come back from radiology and the lab, waited for Talia to pee (they needed a sample for another test--this was probably the longest part of the whole process!), and waited for the pediatrician at the ER to talk to our pediatrician. During this time "our Talia" came slowly back to us with brighter eyes, more energy, and even eventual giggles. In the end all the reports came back free & clear. The final diagnosis: a virus. We are to treat the fever and be cautious of contaminating anyone else. Finally, at 10:30, the nurse came in to tell us we were ready to go.

In the end, it was a lot of trouble for something simple, but as things got scarier before they got better, I was glad we went.