Hospital Stay

Well, Carer ended up being admitted to the hospital per my previous post. We thought she was on the mend, but she quickly took a turn for the worst. Wednesday my mom was keeping her and called to let me know she had been sleeping all day. When she woke up from her nap around 1:00 her fever was up to 103.7, and she was breathing very rapidly (think panting like a puppy). I rushed home from school and headed to the doctors office to be there when they opened back up from lunch. Unfortunately for us, they closed for good at 1:00 that day. We headed toward the after hours clinic while we waited on the after hours nurse to call us back. Once we got in touch with her she told us their after hour clinic wasn't open until 4:30, and there was no guarantee that they would be able to see us right then. She told us to go straight to the Children's ER, and she would let them know we were on the way.

When we arrived at the emergency room they immediately took us back. Her temp was up to 104 when we arrived, and she had just taken Motrin an hour and a half before. They hooked her up to the oxygen machine and her levels were in the 80's and sometimes low 90's. They tried to get an IV started to give her some fluids as well. This was the absolute worst part. We had to hold her down on the bed and it took forever for them to even locate a vein. They blew 6 of her veins before an IV specialist was able to get a needle in without the vein blowing. This was about an hour and a half process. I would have to pick her up between attempts, and then they would send a different nurse to try and the process would start all over again. At one point they were going to use the vein in her head for the IV, and that was about my breaking point. Once they looked good at her head they decided that wasn't a good option so didn't try. So long story short, we were admitted until Carter could keep her oxygen levels up without requiring help from an oxygen machine and didn't need fluids. We also found out in the huge amount of tests that she had RSV, which then turned in to the broncholitis. We spent the night, and we were released late the next afternoon. I slept in the huge crib at the hospital with her because she kept pulling the oxygen line out of her nose. We were very well cared for though and everyone there was so great! We hope we never have to visit again!!