Saturday, March 20, 2010

Apparently, we really missed the hospital

IIIIIII’mmmmm baaaaaaaack, after over a week. The Girl and I have been in the hospital all week. Ironic isn’t it, The Husband finally gets home, he finally gets over the nausea, it finally stops snowing and the sun comes out, so instead of the family finally getting to hang out together we decided we missed the Cuneo hospital too much and needed to spent more time there. Sarcasm aside, the poor Girl got a terrible rash, which appears to be an allergic reaction to something mysterious. She looked like I had forgotten her in the midday sun in august in the Caribbean. It started around her mouth and nose and it spread to her face then her whole body, the only part of her that didn’t turn bright red were her legs and feet. It was really horrible, she screamed every time we touched her… at first I thought she had dislocated a shoulder or something (I’ve heard of that happening) so I took her to her doc on Thursday and she found an ear infection. She couldn’t explain the rash, but said that the pain was probably due to her ears…ha! We went home, dutifully started taken an antibiotic, but the next morning she was still in pain so I went back and was promptly sent to the hospital. There we started a whole other ball game. Watching a doctor and two nurses hold down a teeny little screaming baby while another doctor took blood from, I’m not kidding, both arms and both hands was the worst, most excruciatingly horrible moment of my life. The Husband had to leave the room. Anyway, they told us she had something called Stevens-Johnson syndrome, it’s a reaction to possibly bacteria, a virus or some medication. They don’t really know what causes it, just probable causes. (so informative!) Of course, The Girl hadn’t taken any medication when this happened, I hadn’t either (she’s still nursing, so that’s a factor), she had an ear infection but they excluded that this could be a reaction to whatever bacteria or virus caused that. The only other thing that could be a possible cause (and it’s definitely where I’m leaning) are the vaccines she had exactly one week prior to her symptoms starting… coincidence? Obviously, the doctors exclude that the vaccines could have caused this, but on the Mayo Clinic website it says that two of the illnesses that cause this syndrome are diphtheria and hepatitis, shockingly those were two of the six illnesses she was vaccinated for. Coincidence?
Ok, I’m done being a smart ass. (for now!) They kept us there for a week, though they couldn’t give her anything other than Tylenol and an antihistamine, and the hooked her up to a saline solution IV to keep her extra hydrated. The Girl was a total star, she didn’t complain about having an IV permanently stuck to her foot, she started smiling at all the nurses as soon as she started feeling a little better. Unfortunately, now she’s peeling like crazy, and that makes her very uncomfortable and itchy.
We staged a prison break on Thursday, they weren’t 100% comfortable letting us go, but we’re so close to the hospital that we felt ok going home. Everybody was thrilled with the plan, The Boy was happy to have us home, The Husband was thrilled at not having to go back and forth from the hospital, The Girl was happy there was nobody to poke and prod at her all day, and I’m ecstatic at sleeping in my lovely bed again.
Of course, the weather turned crap on us, but we think we may just have a couple of sunny days this week, so we can do outdoors type stuff before The Husband goes back in for his third and final round.
Tomorrow our friends The Brazilians are coming to visit so I’ll have something interesting to relate!
Today, The Husband and The Boy started on a series of home improvement projects The Husband has to cover before going back in. The Boy was thrilled to go to the hardware store, and to watch Daddy make holes in the wall with the noisy and dirt creating drill! Ok, over and out for now. Hopefully next time I’ll be more inspired and my writing style will have improved!!

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