A Week That Went from Bad to Horrible

As I wrote about last post, Liliana was pretty sick with a fever.  When I typed that I would be updating you guys, I had no idea where my week would take us.  Unfortunately, the news was worse than I hoped.  This has been an incredibly tough week for us.  I am trying to stay strong in front of others, mainly because I don't want to take the time to acknowledge how unfortunate it has been.

I do want to talk about it all though, because writing is therapeutic, AND because I want to help other Mother's possibly going through the same thing with their kids.

On Tuesday, after I ate my cupcake, I put Liliana down for a nap.  When she woke up, she was burning and had a fever of 103.3.  I slightly freaked out, called my Mom (a pediatric radiologist) and she said that was awfully high but to try and wait until Evan got him for some advice.  An hour later, I took it again because the Ibuprofen didn't seem to be helping.  This time, it was 104.2. 

Evan gets horrible service in the hospital, so for the first time since he started medical school (which is basically 4 years ago) I called the hospital and told them to find my husband.  I stayed strong on the phone as best I could.  They told me that he was leaving RIGHT as I called.  Sure enough, Evan called me while I was saying good bye to the nurse.

As soon as he answered, my tears started.  I was so scared to see Liliana so red due to the fever and didn't know what was going on.  Evan rushed home while I packed everything up and on we went to the ER for the first time since she was born.  Fortunately, Evan knew the doctor on call and we were seen really quickly.  Liliana was diagnosed with a Urinary Tract Infection (UTI) and an ear infection.  By the time we left the hospital, it was nearly 1 in the morning.  We started her on antibiotics that evening and went to bed concerned, but relieved that we had a diagnosis.

Wednesday proceeded with Liliana sleeping a lot.  We both thought we would be at work on Thursday.  If only ...

On Thursday morning, Liliana woke up with a fever of 104.2 again.  This time, I saw concern in Evan's face.  I trust Evan's medical opinion so very much ... after all, he'll be a doctor in approximately 3 weeks.  When I saw he was worried, I started going from worried to panicked.  We went in to see her pediatrician at 10:45.

Due to her severe fever, he decided to give her a shot of Rocefrin to truly treat the UTI.  He said she didn't in fact have an ear infection, but it was just that red because of her extreme fevers.  Then, he delivered the bad news.

He asked if anyone in Liliana's family had a history of UTI's.

I do.

I had plenty as an infant, and take medication any time after sexual intercourse to this day because I get UTI's so very easily.

As soon as he heard that, he ordered an Ultrasound and VCUG (I'll explain more in a second) on Liliana.

Fortunately, Dr. Tata (my Mommy) does this for a living so we decided we'd go to San Antonio to have the procedures done.  We quickly packed, closed on our house in Little Rock through mail (without even noticing what a big event that was) and were on our way.

On the way, my car broke down.  What are the freaking chances right?  This is another story in and of itself, but let me just say we have the best friends EVER.  They met us 30 minutes away from their home and let us use their car for the weekend so we could get Liliana's tests done.

We didn't end up arriving in San Antonio until nearly 1 a.m. because the trip took 10 hours instead of 6 due to car troubles.

The next morning, we went confidently to the hospital.  My Mom told us to relax because 5/6 of baby girls have normal results are having UTIs as infants.

Liliana's ultrasound was perfectly normal and that made me relax. Then the VCUG came.  For a VCUG, they put a catheter in Liliana and then inject a dye in to her bladder to make sure no urine moves.  A normal result stays in the bladder.  Liliana's was doing so with flying colors, but then I heard my Mom say ...

"oh no, she refluxed."

And sure enough, on the TV screen, I saw a line go from Liliana's bladder to her kidneys.  This is called stage 2 reflux.  The stages tell you how far up it goes in the body and range from 1 to 5.  While the results COULD have been SO much worse, they could have been better too.

I fully expected to be one of the 5/6 normal results.

We go see her pediatrician again on Thursday and he is going to start her on what's called prophylactic antibiotics.  These antibiotics ensure that Liliana will not have another UTI while she is taking them.  In another year we'll go back for ANOTHER VCUG and make sure that she has outgrown the reflux.  Hopefully, she will.

In the mean time, Liliana's antibiotics to get rid of the UTI have been helping.  It has been a tough week, not just because of this, but because of our car (what I'm assuming will be a HUGE unanticipated expense) and because of some other events that aren't my place to discuss here on this blog.

When I put Liliana to sleep the last few nights, I've had tears in my eyes because I feel at fault for these problems.  Liliana is SO much like her Daddy and the ONE thing that she got from Mommy was this health problem that VERY likely will go away ... but in the mean time, I'll worry.  Because I love that little girl more than words can say.