My facebook "on this day" popped up with a picture of Jaime, Emerson, Jillian and myself after Emerson's baby dedication. Lydia was the large bump in my abdomen. That picture made me smile so I clicked open the "on this day" and there sat the pictures from last year at this time... Jilli in the hospital, very sick. I started to cry. I'm not much of a cryer. This was ugly tears cry. I don't know why that hit me like it did... maybe the last few days had something to do with it...
Last week I went to the dentist because at my teeth cleaning they looked at the crown they put on a few months ago and said it wasn't sitting right and that if I got it fixed now that its covered under warranty but if I waited and it broke it wouldn't be. Have I mentioned before how much I HATE this tooth?! So I agreed to doing it now. I went in last Monday and they drilled the old crown off and took the impression for the new one. In the process part of my tooth broke, it was a long afternoon where I spent almost 2 hours at the dentist with both kids. Tuesday I got a call, when the mold went to the crown making place there was an issue so they needed me to come back in and take the temporary crown back off and remold it again so I did that on Thursday (and my mouth has hurt enough I have had to take something for the pain most days since and if you know me you you how I fight taking any pain meds, including over the counter, but I have had to take Alive the past few days). When the kids and I got home on Thursday our plan was to run to Target and then meet Brent in Burlington to play at the park and get ice cream before the snow storm, but we got home and Lydia felt warm. Both of my girls and I have a normal temp around 97.4 so its rare that we rise enough to be in the fever rank... well Lydia was at a 99.5. She was cuddly but didn't have any other symptoms so we decided to just stay home and watch her but let her body fight (we didn't give her any meds for the temp). Friday she was fine all day. Saturday Jilli had zoo class, then we dropped off donations at rmh and then we headed over to Smiths to hear all about Nate's wish trip and for dinner. We drove home in the slush storm and there was a car rolled over by our house but thankfully we made it home safe. Sunday morning Brent got up and headed to church but it took him close to a half hour to get the ice off his car. When I got up it was freezing rain and I made the choice to stay home which given the amount of reports online about issues with cars between me and church I think I made the right choice. The kids and I had a calm day watching movies and playing. Brent came home and we started working on our latest house project, redoing our entry way so you don't trip over medical supplies and shoes as you walk into our house. We are still majorly mid project with this (the walls got painted, but everything that once was in the closet is in our front entry right now and all of our cleaning supplies are across our kitchen).
Sunday night into Monday Lydia was restless in her sleep. She had a slight cough but nothing remarkable. Brent works from home on Monday mornings so he was still here when Lydia woke up burning hot... 102.5! Yikes thats high for her! I put the pulse ox on and her pulse rate was over 200! I called our ped office and asked the nurse what hospital they wanted me to take her to and she said to try my best given the roads to get to chw so I called the special needs oncall line and and left a message that we were headed to the ER, gave Lydia meds for the fever and got in the car. Thankfully Brent was able to work from home so he stayed with Jilli.
Thankfully the roads were not too bad and we made it up to chw. There was a line but someone recognized us and took us to a room. She still had a fever despite the med and was tachycardic. The fellow came in and look and said that Lydia's ear was infected but that they were also going to look into things. The attending came in and listened to her and we talked and came up with a plan. They cathed her for a urine culture (came back clean), drew labs (off but white bloodcell count fine), started an IV and ran a bunch of fluids, and did a chest x-ray. The chest x-ray showed the start of pnemonia. If I needed to bet I would guess its from last week when we were driving home and she opened her med port and sucked formula out of her tube as she laughed at me. Just that amount (I pulled off the interstate and closed her tube) is enough for it to end up in her lungs. Sometimes I start to second guess myself if we are making all of the right medical choices for the kids and then things like this happen and I am reminded how little it takes for things to go south quickly. They also checked out Lydia's butt because she was on flagyl for 10 days (ended last wednesday) for a bacterial overgrowth (she gets those every few months) and last Wednesday she ended up pooping bile and it ate her poor little butt and the skin opened up and bleed. They looked at that and said her butt looks ok and to keep doing what we are doing.
Lydia was so good in the ER. Nothing they did was fun but she was a trooper. She asked a few times if Jilli had done something before and when I told her yes she would calm down. It was like she knew if her Jilli has done it then she could too.
They prescribed an antibiotic and sent us home (she got IV fluids for 4 hours).
Last night Lydia and I hung out on the couch watching youtube for hours (same thing we did in the ER) and then we gave both girls baths. While Brent gave Lydia a bath Jillian and I talked about aspiration pnemonia. Its been a long time since Jilli aspirated because she is old enough to not put things in her mouth anymore but when she was younger she aspirated a lot. Jilli often tells people she doesn't eat because she is allergic to food, which she is allergic to at least dairy, but that isn't the true reason, she doesn't eat orally because she aspirates and has gastic motility issues from her mouth to her rectum.
Lydia is doing alright if we alternate fever meds and do nebs every 4 hours plus she is on 10 days of antibiotics. She is playing a little today and watching a lot of hospital songs.
So today seeing that facebook reminder of a year ago and yesterday still being very fresh in my head my heart cried. I took a moment to feel (I can't honestly tell you an emotion I was feeling, it wasn't sadness or anger... it was just tears) and then dove back into being a mom. I finished reading the book A Faith of our Own this morning (very good, I wish I could hand copies out to everyone, it spoke to a lot of what my mind and heart have been feeling, I can't say enough good things about it, just go read it!) and have taken a slow day around here. I might go make myself a second cup of coffee and soon will snuggle with Lydia for her nap.
I also got to deal more with the IV pole saga... I thought that was over but last night we got a letter from our insurance company saying that VNA asked for a preauth for an IV pole for Lydia. I about flew through the rough! If you don't know what I am referring to, VNA keeps charging $58 a month for an IV pole that Lydia has had since July of 2016, the same pole, we have never given it back nor have they brought us another one. The pole costs $34 from the catalog. Our insurance paid $43 a month for 6 months before a bill mistakenly came to me instead of them and then I figured out what they were doing and flipped... they were paid most then the price of the pole month one, there is no reason they should be getting paid monthly for this pole. Then last April we switched insurance and they started charging this new company for the pole despite our former company having paid for it many times over. I argued and fought but they said it was in their right to charge the new company for it since we were renting it. I called there today and asked why they asked for a preauth for this (which our dumb insurance company that denies stuff all the time approved to pay for the IV pole they have already bought many times over!!!) and our person at VNA isn't sure why billing sent for the preauth so she was going to look into it. This is fraud!!!
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