I've mentioned it in passing in a few of my posts tonight, but Hannah was really sick for the past few weeks. She's finally better, but the last few weeks were pretty tough.
Starting back at the beginning of February, Hannah and I both caught the stomach bug that's been circulating among all of our baby friends (that's the second time I had it - yuck.). She had diarrhea for almost 2 full weeks. We weren't all that concerned about her being dehydrated because she was still drinking her normal amount of formula, but she was MISERABLE!
It all came to a head on the 10th when we ended up taking her to the emergency room. She had been alternating between being totally lethargic and being inconsolable, and it was really scary. I spoke with an on-call physician's assistant from our pediatrician's office who said that we should take her straight to the ER.
We were very impressed with the nurse and doctor that we saw at Winchester Hospital. Although it was farther away than some of the local hospitals, it was strongly recommended to us that we take Hannah there because they have a pediatric emergency room. All of the doctors there are attending physicians from Children's Hospital Boston.
Even though it was a Friday evening, the ER was pretty empty. We still were there for almost 4 hours though!
The doctor examined her and said that she had a "raging" ear infection in her right ear. She gave her a shot to treat it, because Amoxicillin can cause diarrhea and they didn't want to make it worse for her.
The doctor was concerned that many of Hannah's symptoms were similar to those that would be seen with intussusception, a scary intestinal problem that can occur after children have upper respiratory and GI issues. She ordered an X-ray and an ultrasound for Hannah.
Luckily Hannah slept through the entire ultrasound, but she was awake for the X-ray. It was so sad to see her there on the X-ray table because the smallest gowns they had were meant for young children, not babies (and they had creepy clowns on them). The X-ray technician was really nice though, and he gave Hannah a little stuffed mouse for being such a good patient.
The doctor said that Hannah's test results were very positive and that she most likely didn't have intussusception but that she wanted us to go down to Children's Hospital just to be sure. Since it was already so late at that point, and since Hannah had fallen asleep (and stayed asleep) for a long time while we were waiting for the results, we decided (and the doctor agreed) that we would wait and see how the rest of the night went. We wanted Hannah to be able to sleep for real in her own bed and not spend the whole night being poked and prodded if it wasn't absolutely necessary.
The doctor told us that if she started showing any of the symptoms she had had earlier in the night, that we should take her to Children's immediately. Luckily she didn't!
Dan made fun of me afterwards and asked if I wanted to save her hospital bracelet and the paperwork for my scrapbook. No, I don't! (but I did want to blog about it so we remember all of the details... so there!)
Two more things to mention - they had Hannah drink Pedialyte while we were at the ER but she doesn't like it plain. They put some Grape Kool-Aid in it. My poor little baby now knows what sugar tastes like. Oh no! (since grape flavored things gross me out, they gave us Orange Kool-Aid to take home with us since they wanted her to drink only Pedialyte for at least 12 hours).
I took Hannah back to her own doctor for a follow-up appointment the next Monday and she still had the ear infection. So we ended up doing a round of Amoxicillin anyway. I'm worried that we're on our way to her having to get tubes put in her ears - apparently once a baby has had at least 5 in a single year, they consider it. She's already had 2, and a sinus infection!
Starting back at the beginning of February, Hannah and I both caught the stomach bug that's been circulating among all of our baby friends (that's the second time I had it - yuck.). She had diarrhea for almost 2 full weeks. We weren't all that concerned about her being dehydrated because she was still drinking her normal amount of formula, but she was MISERABLE!
It all came to a head on the 10th when we ended up taking her to the emergency room. She had been alternating between being totally lethargic and being inconsolable, and it was really scary. I spoke with an on-call physician's assistant from our pediatrician's office who said that we should take her straight to the ER.
We were very impressed with the nurse and doctor that we saw at Winchester Hospital. Although it was farther away than some of the local hospitals, it was strongly recommended to us that we take Hannah there because they have a pediatric emergency room. All of the doctors there are attending physicians from Children's Hospital Boston.
Even though it was a Friday evening, the ER was pretty empty. We still were there for almost 4 hours though!
The doctor examined her and said that she had a "raging" ear infection in her right ear. She gave her a shot to treat it, because Amoxicillin can cause diarrhea and they didn't want to make it worse for her.
The doctor was concerned that many of Hannah's symptoms were similar to those that would be seen with intussusception, a scary intestinal problem that can occur after children have upper respiratory and GI issues. She ordered an X-ray and an ultrasound for Hannah.
Luckily Hannah slept through the entire ultrasound, but she was awake for the X-ray. It was so sad to see her there on the X-ray table because the smallest gowns they had were meant for young children, not babies (and they had creepy clowns on them). The X-ray technician was really nice though, and he gave Hannah a little stuffed mouse for being such a good patient.
The doctor said that Hannah's test results were very positive and that she most likely didn't have intussusception but that she wanted us to go down to Children's Hospital just to be sure. Since it was already so late at that point, and since Hannah had fallen asleep (and stayed asleep) for a long time while we were waiting for the results, we decided (and the doctor agreed) that we would wait and see how the rest of the night went. We wanted Hannah to be able to sleep for real in her own bed and not spend the whole night being poked and prodded if it wasn't absolutely necessary.
The doctor told us that if she started showing any of the symptoms she had had earlier in the night, that we should take her to Children's immediately. Luckily she didn't!
Dan made fun of me afterwards and asked if I wanted to save her hospital bracelet and the paperwork for my scrapbook. No, I don't! (but I did want to blog about it so we remember all of the details... so there!)
Two more things to mention - they had Hannah drink Pedialyte while we were at the ER but she doesn't like it plain. They put some Grape Kool-Aid in it. My poor little baby now knows what sugar tastes like. Oh no! (since grape flavored things gross me out, they gave us Orange Kool-Aid to take home with us since they wanted her to drink only Pedialyte for at least 12 hours).
I took Hannah back to her own doctor for a follow-up appointment the next Monday and she still had the ear infection. So we ended up doing a round of Amoxicillin anyway. I'm worried that we're on our way to her having to get tubes put in her ears - apparently once a baby has had at least 5 in a single year, they consider it. She's already had 2, and a sinus infection!
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