Elsie's First Sickness

Elsie made her first trip to the emergency room.  For the past week or so Elsie has had a cold, no fever just a cold. Saturday evening she started to get a bit fussy and Saturday night she did not sleep very good.  I figured it was because of her cold.  Well Sunday she had her first real fever at 102.5.  So I called First Nurse and they had me count her respiration.  Up to 50 a minute is safe but Elsie's was about 55/min so they had us come in.  They said that it normally gets worse as the day goes on so we might as well go in and getting it checked instead of waiting around all day and then having to go in the evening.  So we headed over to Ames.  In the meantime they had us give her some tylenol.  Well by the time we got there her fever was down to 99 degrees and her respiration were down too.  When we finally were seen the physicians assistant told us her ears were red so her fever must because of an ear infection.  They gave us a prescription for an amoxicillan and sent us on our way.  Her 102.5 fever was the last fever she had.

 

This picture was from Saturday night. I finally got her to fall asleep 

after trying for quite a while.  

Waiting so patiently :)

John decided it would be a good time for a nap since we sat

  in the room for almost 3 hours. 

So Sunday we went home and I could tell Elsie did not feel well.  She was up almost every hour crying and wanting comforting.  It was a long couple of nights since none of us are used to this.  She would cry and cry and cry and we would have to hold her so tight to us to get her to calm down.  It was a good thing we didn't have daycare on Monday because she wouldn't have been able to go.  Monday during the day Elsie was back to her old self again.  Happy as can be except she hated taking the antibiotics.    We were supposed to go visit some friends at camp but decided we better not do to much with her being sick.  Monday night however was the same as Sunday night.  We were up again quite a few times during the night.    No fever since Sunday but I could tell things just weren't right.  I thought maybe her ears were hurting when she laid down because she would fall right back to sleep the minute she was in our arms. 

 We decided to take her to daycare since she was on anitbiotics, no fever for over 24 hours and she was happy on Monday during the day.  Well when I got her dressed that morning I noticed a rash on her belly.  Uhhh I thought for sure it must be a rash for the anitbiotics.  So I took her to Jo Jo's and had her take a look at it.  She thought the same thing.  After talking about it we decided to leave her at daycare and I would call the pediatrician to see if we needed to switch antibiotics.  

Well they wanted to see her and could get her in right away so back to Jo Jo's I went and took her in.  It did not take the doctor long to tell us the initial diagnosis was wrong and she did not have an ear infection.  What she did have was Hand, Foot and Mouth disease.  The doctor found a small sore on the roof of her mouth and one small dot by her wrist.  I have heard some nasty things about this virus but it appeared Elsie had just a mild case of it.  She said that this strain going around also leaves a rash on their body too.  So no more antibiotics and we just needed to manage the symptoms since there is no medication for it.  She said she would no longer be contagious once she was fever free for a couple of days.  She said by Thursday she should be safe to go back to daycare since she hadn't had a fever since Sunday.  We have no idea where she picked this up from since we know no one who has this.  

Since she was unable to go back to daycare she came with me to work.  We made up a nice little bed for her so she could take a nap while I got some work done.  Wednesday I was off from work so we stayed home but Thursday she was back at daycare.  Wednesday night she was sleeping so good and then around 1:30 am we had a tornado warning so I had to get her out of bed and of course she woke up and slept terrible the rest of the night.  Thursday night she was back to her old self sleeping through the night.  Her cold is still bothering her a bit but hopefully that will clear itself up soon.  

During this whole ordeal it just broke my heart knowing she felt so terrible and there wasn't much I could do for her :(.  I guess that is just part of being a mom.