Virus

Today has been an interesting day. I woke up at 4am to feed Tabitha and checked my phone for a text message. My Grandma Wood was admitted to the hospital and has pneumonia. After waking at a more normal hour, 6am, I spoke to Aaron about when I should go see her in LKLD. We decided I would go Thursday after school. As I got the kids dressed for the day I noticed Tabitha seemed warm. She was still in her jammies and fussy so I changed her and waited for her to calm down to take her temp. Once I did (and I almost didn't take it) I immediately checked our pediatricians newborn sheet on whether I needed to call him or not. A temp of 101.7 was much higher than the allowed temp in an infant 8 weeks or younger. Tabitha just turned 8 weeks on Monday. I took Charles to school and headed over to the doctor right away.
After an exam and two negative tests in office he sent us to the hospital to do blood work. If it's viral we do nothing, if it's bacterial we can administer meds. I was to come back at 2pm for results.
We got back to the pediatricians and they bagged her for a urine and gave her another exam. Since 9am she had developed a rash on her torso (the doc in the ER called it her trunk). It was small red pin spots. That rash sent her straight to the ER. :-(
We arrived at the ER around 3:30pm. Aaron got there about an hour later. They did a urine, got an iv started, did chest x-rays and a spinal tap. With infants this young they have to rule out all possibilities, including meningitis. About 7:30pm we were admitted and sent to peds. The children's ER was nice but peds is so much nicer. We are much more comfortable than we were 2 years ago when Isabella was here.
It's midnight and Tabitha is resting comfortably, she's receiving antibiotics as a precaution. Aaron and my Mom are home with the other three kids. Oh yeah, those kids...Mary called and said McKenna was having interesting diaper blow outs. Since 2pm McKenna has had nothing but diarrhea. And since 8pm Isabella has had diarrhea. Sooooo, Dr. Lacy believes that girls all have the same stomach virus. GREAT! Stomach virus, we can handle!
As far as I'm concerned our prayers have been answered. Nothing more has been said about meningitis at the hospital. We are just waiting for all the official tests to be run and results to come back. In the mean time we are keeping her comfortable and trying to keep the fever down.
My Grandma remains in the hospital but is feeling better. I will not be going to LKLD to visit with her. We'll have to wait till all this has passed.