We're Home!

We have spent the weekend with illness around here. Thursday evening I came down with a nasty stomach virus. (We had plans to take the kids to the circus Friday morning at 10:30! That's another blog entry that I had typed out already and it deleted itself...) Robert, Mattie and Jacob have been coughing all weekend. And Saturday around noon, Mattie's eye started puffing up for no known reason. We knew she hadn't bumped it, because she's not one to get hurt and not let me share her pain!

This was what it looked like by 6:30 Saturday. By Sunday morning it seemed much more painful and she could barely open it at all.

My brother in law just had this (or something similar) a month or two ago and sent an e-mail with a picture. In his e-mail he told us it's a good thing he'd gone to the doctor instead of let it go, because this can be a fatal infection! I'm also one to wait stuff out, especially when the ER is my only option, but after a little googling, we went to the ER.

And our small town ER sent us to the local children's hospital where they admitted her. Apparently the best antibiotic for this infection (periorbital preseptal cellulitis) is one to which Mattie is allergic. So that left only IV antibiotics. This is not an infection to mess around with, as it can get serious very quickly and cause meningitis and a whole host of other problems.

Mattie was a champ with her IV and blood draws. She was madder than a hornet and quite loud about it, but didn't fight us too badly. And once it was in, she left the board and ports there without bothering it a bit. She even slept well both nights! When they came for her first IV I told her it was medicine for her arm. She said, "Medcin! Yay!"

Robert came to give me a shower break... and let me take a nice walk to Starbucks (which was not nearly far enough away)!

So, twelve hours of one IV antibiotic later, it was only getting worse, so they added another one. And this one required regular blood work every 24 hours. After that second one, the swelling went down very quickly. We could see noticeable differences every half an hour or so. Praise the Lord!

Perking up after the antibiotics were working...

So today they discharged us about 3:00. She has a full round of oral antibiotics (all my hard work of avoiding antibiotics down the drain in 48 hours!!) and should be good as new...

Thank you for your prayers.


Several blessings in this:

1) That Danny had this two months ago so I knew to be concerned quickly. I kept remembering his e-mail.

2) We were able to avoid a CT scan (that they had initially planned for us) and sedation that would have gone with it.

3) There was a bed in our room instead of a crib! This meant that I had a place for her to play off the floor (other than being in jail in those metal cribs) and that I could sleep with her... so we actually slept (as well as can be expected on vinyl mattresses)!

4) That this (and my nasty virus) happened on a weekend when Robert was here.

My sweet baby...


who's getting crankier by the minute as these antibiotics build up in her system.