When Elizabeth was 6 hours old she was struggling breathing
and we did not know (thank heavens for good nurses). Being new parents is hard
and there is a lot of new things to learn; one big thing to learn is when your
child is sick and what to do about it. We had another experience with this 'not
knowing' learning curve this week.
On Saturday Elizabeth would NOT eat her dinner. She has started wanting to feed herself
(which has made dinner more difficult) and she is having more picky
moments. I let her cry while I shoved
food into her mouth and then put her to sleep a little frustrated (knowing she
had not eaten her usual amount). That
night (about 2 am) she threw up all over herself and her crib. We cleaned it up and cleaned her up and did
our best to help her get some sleep. This
is when I started kicking myself for not knowing that our sweet little girl was
sick and not just being picky!
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| Sunday morning she crawled into the sunshine and fell asleep- poor tired girl! |
The next day she again refused to eat or drink
anything. This was accompanied by diarrhea
and a high fever. Ben went to church
without us and when he got home we checked her fever again and found that
(during a lapse between Tylenol) she had a fever of 105 degrees. So we took her to urgent care where, after 3
hours, we were told that she looked healthy (ears, nose, throat, lungs, ect)
and we were given anti-nausea medicine to help her drink/eat. The next day she started drinking a little
bit (again no food) but her fever continued and we were getting nervous about
dehydration.
On Tuesday we noticed that she was getting blisters on her
hands and we went to see her doctor and were told that she had a virus (that
was going around). He said that the
blisters looked like she might have Hand, Mouth and Foot (a very contagious
disease similar to chicken pox). By Wednesday her fever was gone and she was
eating a little better BUT her blisters (on her hands, arms and feet) were
still pretty bad.
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| She did finally start eating and drinking... |
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| You can't see very well- but she has blisters all over her tiny fingers |
Now, 8 days after she started acting sick, her blisters are
starting to look a little better and she is acting like her normal adventurous
smiley self! It is such a scary thing to
have a sick baby and to feel helpless in knowing what is wrong and how to care
for them. I am glad that we have smart
doctors who can help ease my mind and give me advice and guidance. And I am grateful for loving parents and siblings
who give me advice and encouragement to help through this new learning curve! I am also grateful for a healthy girl and that I am now getting some sleep! ;)
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