Update: Urinary Tract Infection

It has still been a very hard day for Annabelle, but she has definitely shown some progress. She has wanted to nurse a whole lot more today, but that is fine with me if she feels she needs it.

She only ate maybe a bite or two of cottage cheese this morning and maybe one grape (if that). For lunch, I bought mashed potatoes and macaroni and cheese from Boston Market hoping that she would eat some of each, but she wouldn’t eat one bite. She did eat a few of her Daddy’s curly fries from Arby’s, but maybe only three or four of them. For dinner, she wanted nothing except to drop her dried peas into her cup of tea.

Besides the nursing, she does not want to drink anything, and she refuses it completely by pushing it away and saying “NO!” She has not wanted any Jell-O or popsicles, not even one! She did have one popsicle last night (her very first popsicle ever), and she seemed to enjoy it. I actually got some really cute pictures of her eating her first popsicle even though she probably didn’t look her best since she still didn’t feel well.

She woke up this morning at 5:30 a.m. with a temperature of 101.6 degrees Fahrenheit (38.7 degrees Celsius). She felt very hot! I gave her another dose of Motrin. She had been due for another dose at 12:00 a.m., but she lasted until 5:30 a.m., so I guess that is a good sign. When she woke up feeling bad at 5:30 a.m., I brought her into the bed with us to sleep. She either kicked or head butted her Daddy in the head this morning, but apparently, he didn’t remember it very well. He actually gave her a dirty look when she did it, although I don’t think he meant to because he was still sound asleep.

She woke up for the morning around 8:00 a.m., and she was happy and ready to play. She still didn’t seem like herself though since she didn’t want to eat very much for breakfast. I had plans scheduled with an old friend who I haven’t spoken with since three weeks before Annabelle was born. That’s another story in itself, but to make a long story short, she felt that I wasn’t trying hard enough to be her friend because I apparently didn’t call her to reschedule after cancelling with her. Oddly enough, the last time I remembered cancelling with her was the same night that my Grandmother passed away (only two weeks before I became pregnant), and I told her that we would need to reschedule because my Grandmother passed away. I was then exhausted my first trimester, and I didn’t feel like doing much besides going to work and coming home to sleep. I didn’t really feel like going to work either! Then, she said that I didn’t call her until 4 months later to tell her I was pregnant. I think it was closer to 3 months later though as I told her in April shortly before April 15th. She doesn’t believe that she was one of the first non-family friends I called, but she was. I, of course, told my best friend, Kelley, first (after the family found out). But, the family didn’t find out until mid-March, and I got pregnant on January 26th. And, yes, I know the exact date. But, she was definitely one of the next people I told besides family. I never realized she was so hurt with me. I thought she pulled away from me because I was pregnant and happily married. So, anyhow, once again, I had to cancel our lunch meeting, and we haven’t seen each other in almost two years! But, I’m sorry; my children will always come first! And, I am glad I stayed because Annabelle really needed me later in the day. Daddy tried to comfort her, but she still wanted her Mommy.

So, around 10:30 a.m., after I called and cancelled with my old friend, Annabelle fell asleep and took another nap in our bed. I, of course, used that time to blog some more. She woke up around 12:00 p.m. with another temperature. This time her temperature was 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit. I tried to feed her lunch as I mentioned above, but she didn’t want it.

I finally got some more Motrin in her around 1:30 p.m. She looked miserable, so I told her that her and her Daddy could watch a movie together. Daddy was excited to be able to watch television while Annabelle was awake, so he picked out a children’s movie, Shark Tale. Annabelle rarely ever gets to watch television! So, this was supposed to be a treat for her. She sat on the sofa and watched it a little while, and I jumped in the shower. Probably 15 minutes into the movie, I heard her crying, “Mommy! Mommy!” Her Daddy rocked her while I finished up, and then I sat next to her in the bed to comfort her. She finally calmed down once I laid down next to her. She never did fall asleep though.

She seemed to be feeling better closer to 2:30 p.m., and I just needed to get out of the house for a little while. I’ve been clamped up in a house since Monday because the weather has been bad due to the tropical storm from Florida, and then Annabelle started feeling really bad on Thursday when the weather turned nice again. So we decided to take her for a walk in the stroller. She was happy to go and she cried when I mentioned it to her and then Daddy said it was too hot, so I told her it was too hot. She really wanted to go outside. She actually enjoyed herself, although she didn’t take one sip of juice the entire stroller ride. It just sat there in front of her where she put it on the stroller tray. I kept asking her to drink some juice, and she would say “No,” every time.

After our stroller ride, she played with Daddy from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. while I took a nap myself. She sounded so happy in there playing with Daddy. I kept hearing her say, “Hi Daddy!” It was so sweet. He would say “Hi Annabelle!” in response every time.

Around 6:00 p.m., I decided to try to get her to eat some dinner, but she wanted nothing to do with it. As mentioned above, she just dropped her dried peas into her tea. She maybe took a sip of tea.

I doubt that she has had 4 ounces of fluids (besides nursing) all day. So, I really started to worry about her. I had changed her diaper around 4:00 p.m. and by 6:30 p.m., it was still completely dry. And, when I changed her diaper at 4:00 p.m. it wasn’t very wet, and the urine was very concentrated.

So, I contacted the doctor’s office around 6:36 p.m. (to be exact), and I left a message with their answering service. I still had not heard back from them by 7:30 p.m., so hubby called and left another message. He had a hard time getting through to the answering service though because the line was busy the first few times he called.

Finally, around 7:45 p.m., Dr. Colton returned my phone call. I thought it was odd that Dr. Colton called me back and not a nurse, but that was fine with me. While I was on the phone with him, a nurse did call and leave a message. She called back later, and I told her that I was on the phone with Dr. Colton when she had called.

Dr. Colton didn’t seem to think that she was dehydrated. He said that if she were dehydrated, she probably would not fight me when I tried to give her liquids with a dropper (which she did). Of course, he doesn’t know my child, does he? She’s a fighter! Thank goodness for that or she may not even be with us today! And, she’s a strong little booger (as the nurses even confirmed yesterday after trying to catheterize her). He said that often times children with bladder infections don’t want to drink anything because they fear that they are going to vomit. I don’t think this is the case with Annabelle because she still requested juice on Friday after she had thrown up both times. This is why I became very concerned. I think she knows that drinking causes her to urinate, and she doesn’t want to urinate because it hurts. I hope it isn’t a more serious reason.

He said she needed to get a wet diaper every 4-6 hours. Of course, I told him that I didn’t think she had a really good wet diaper since 10:30 a.m. So, he recommended “dream time feeding” with her for the next one to one and half hours (because she had already fallen asleep for the evening at this point). He said I should give her a teaspoon every 5-10 minutes, and then start doubling the amount as the time continued, and hopefully, she would realize that Mommy isn’t going to stop with the dropper, so I guess I’ll just drink something myself using my own sipee cup. He recommended mixing ½ Gatorade with ½ water. Since I told him I was still nursing, he recommended nursing as much as possible. But, I told him that she had nursed more already today, but I was afraid that she wasn’t getting very much because I had dropped her down to 3 feedings per day over 7 months ago. That is the problem with nursing, you don’t have a clue how much they are getting to drink. He said that if she didn’t have a wet diaper within 2 hours of our phone call to give him a call back, and we could talk about admitting her to the hospital to get an IV. Of course, that is not the route we want to take if we can help it! He said that for someone her weight (approximately 26 lbs), she needed to be getting 1 liter of fluid per day. He wasn’t surprised that she was still running a fever since she’s been on the antibiotics for just a little over 24 hours, and he said she would probably still be running a fever in the morning as well. I asked him if someone would be on call as the Physician’s Assistant had mentioned to me, and he said that he would be in the office from 8:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. tomorrow if I felt that he needed to see her.

So, from 8:30 p.m. until 9:40 p.m., I had been waking Annabelle up to give her a mix of Gatorade and water using the dropper. She was not happy with us at all, but she only told me about it (and not Daddy)! “NO Mommy, NO NO!” I really hated to wake her up, but I know she needs those fluids. And, she never decided to drink from her sipee cup herself until I made a deal with her that she could look at the pictures on my computer (that she so badly wanted to see one time after I woke her up and she realized I had the computer in there with us) if she would take a sip of drink for every picture. That deal lasted for one picture!

Dr. Colton actually mentioned to me that even third world countries could get around dehydration without needing an IV because they didn’t have IV’s in third world countries. He mentioned that it just took a little bit of persistence. He was actually very nice when he said it though even though I’m probably not making him sound nice in this blog entry. He’s always been very kind when I’ve dealt with him. I think it was just his way of telling me to be more persistent. Of course, I still feel like the worst Mommy in the whole wide world. (1) Because I should have taken Annabelle to the doctor’s office on Wednesday when she wasn’t feeling well just based on her symptoms with the mucous on Monday and (2) Because I should have pushed the fluids a lot harder all day long. I guess I just assumed that she was actually getting some fluids through nursing until her diapers were no longer wet. Shame on Annabelle’s Mommy!

So, at 9:30 p.m. when I gave Annabelle some more Motrin, her temperature was 99.1 degrees Fahrenheit (although she felt a lot hotter). Hopefully, based on that temperature, she is making some progress. By the way, these temperatures were all taken rectally, so they should be fairly accurate. And, my sweet baby girl actually didn’t give me too much trouble with taking her temperature rectally. Of course, I wouldn’t have blamed her if she had.

Also, one thing I did not know that Dr. Colton recommended. I had mentioned to him that her fever would rise an hour to an hour and a half before the next dose of Motrin was due, but this last time, her fever started to spike around 6:30 p.m. (3 hours before the next dose was due). He said that I could alternate every three hours between Tylenol and Motrin to keep the fever down. I did not know that, so that is excellent to know. He also said that I could give her some Tylenol three hours before the next dose of Motrin was due even if I didn’t alternate between the two.

I checked on her around 11:15 p.m. because she cried out in her sleep. She reached down to her crotch to hold herself, so I can only assume that she was hurting while she was urinating. I then felt her diaper, and it felt warm, so I knew she had urinated a little bit more. I guess that is a good sign, but I am going to continue to push fluids down her so we can get rid of this bladder infection! I really think she truly understands that drinking causes her to urinate, and urinating causes her pain.

Hooray! It is 11:50 p.m., and I heard her in there talking to herself and moving around, so I went to check on her. Her fever has broken, and she was actually sweating. That is a good sign to me because I haven’t felt her sweat with a broken fever since her 104 degree Fahrenheit temperature broke yesterday evening. Also, I haven’t noticed any tears with crying, and I had read (and heard from Dr. Colton) that it was also a sign of dehydration.

Please just keep her in your prayers, and keep her Mommy and Daddy in your prayers too that we’ll know the best things for her.

Thank you to everyone who is keeping up with these blog entries. I know they are probably very long and boring to you, but I wanted to document everything for Annabelle as well as myself if Annabelle ever has another issue with another bladder infection.