St. Pat's in the ER......

Since my mom died a little over 2 years ago I haven't  had to hang out with anybody in the ER (except me:  The last THREE ER visits for the family have been me.  No - wait - I think Curlygirl had one... it's all a blur LOL).  Generally speaking, though, I haven't been in an emergency room wondering if I'm going to need to run home and pack a suitcase in preparation for a 4 -hour ambulance ride.

But last week Squeaker turned 6, and invited a dozen of his closest little germ-vector cousins to come over and tear his house apart to celebrate.  It was a 3-hour madhouse of screaming kids, jabbering moms and dads, and cake.  Since then, everyone in the house has come down with something:  Squeaks had a high fever and a bellyache for a few days, I've had a cold, Curlygirl is achy and incredibly weak.

Yesterday Babygirl spiked a fever of 103, took some aspirin and it went away.  She told me about it this morning.  I reminded her that fevers are important, and she needs to tell me, but she looked quite well, so we worked the concession stand for the basketball games at church, did grocery shopping and ran errands, and she was fine. 

At 8:30 she sent me at text (it's our version of an intercom - her bedroom is on the third floor - don't judge me!) letting me know that she had a temp of 101.2 and she needed some medicine.  She had taken some aspirin about an hour earlier when she had some bad chills but wasn't really feeling better.  I preregistered for the ER with In Quicker ("fever/kidney transplant/safer to wait at home) and got a call back from a nurse within 5 minutes:  Don't wait. Come in now.  On the way in she started coughing hard enough to gag. Her temp was 103.3 by the time we arrived, and her heart was racing.

By 9:30 she was roomed and tests were in progress, and by midnight we were given a diagnosis of presumed influenza.  We're waiting for the second liter of fluid to finish running in, and then we're out.  The doctor was kind enough to push some meds to help with the migtraine du jour as well. 

It's good to know that we don't need to leave town. It's good to know that she can safely be considered to have a viral illness and sent home.  It's wonderful to know she has enough white blood cells to fight this off.

But.  Squeaker had fevers this high for three or four days, and I told Curlygirl to keep him home because it was so clearly viral.  We still can't take that chance with Babygirl. And we never will be able to.

DeeDee