illness

Leila was sicker than she has ever been this weekend. She started vomiting and having diarhea on Saturday at home with Dad while I was in the office working on my damn thesis. I thought it might just have been something she ate, so I took her to church with me. She was pretty cuddly there and wanted to just sit on my lap, but that's normal for the first while. Then, in the middle of Julie's talk, she threw up. I caught it in my hand, and sat there for a moment trying to think what to do. I realized I could carry her under one leg and still keep a hand under her mouth, so we rushed off to the bathroom. She also needed a diaper change. We finished out church because I needed to talk to a couple of people, but I realized that she was pretty hot. When we got home I took her temperature. It wasn't high, but it was there. She had fallen asleep in the car, but she woke up and I changed her into her pjs. I gave her some tylenol and I nursed her to sleep. She was a restless sleeper, and woke up to throw up again, all over me and the bed. We changed the sheet, and her. She went back to sleep, but I didn't want to give her more tylenol as she might have just thrown it up again. All night long she felt hot, but I thought that the fever wasn't too high. In the morning she still had a fever, and she was lethargic, so we decided to take her into Prima Care. It's much cheaper than the emergency room, but the lab tech told us she'd just take her grandkids to Children's Medical because they didn't really know much about kids there. The Dr. had her blood drawn, and her white blood count was normal, but the types of white blood cells were reversed. He sent us home and told us to give her tylenol and if she didn't act better with no fever to take her to the hospital. He also prescribed antiobiotics since her ears and throat looked red and might have a secondary infection.
We took her home and tried to get her to drink. She slept a lot, and threw up again. I put her in the bathtub for a while, in warm water, but her fever didn't really go down. I tried sponging her with cold water, and that helped. The strange thing was how lethargic she was. Ocassionaly she'd perk up and say somthing: I asked her "Who's this?" and she said "Elmo". I got out the Sears baby book and decided that there was nothing to worry about if the fever wasn't going up to high or too quickly. I talked to my mom who said she'd read that it's actually good to let the fever do it's work. I prayed alot too. Finally at about 11:00 she woke up from a sleep and I think she managed to just poop and not throw up, and her fever was broken. I slept much better for that.
Of course, Monday was the start of a new session, and I had to be to work early. H really helped by trying to attend to Leila during the night. She ended up sleeping on top of him instead of against me. In the morning they were both sleeping when I left, and when I called later she was doing well. Her fever didn't come back. I guess she had some diarrhea, and really perked up after pooping in her bath. When I got home (late, because I had my night class) she was almost her normal self. She was having some pain though, because she fussed a little and wanted Habib to hold her. When she started fussing and crying alot I decided it was her bedtime. She started nursing, and she didn't want to stop. Every time I removed her from the boob she cried and screamed. Finally I just couldn't take anymore nursing and cut her off. She cried and screamed for about five minutes, rolling around the bed, and then calmed down to a whimper and then hiccups. I gave her juice, which she finished off, and then at 5 got up and got her milk. I'm glad she was drinking because yesterday she didn't drink very much. She kept refusing her sippy cup, so when I got home I gave her a little glass and she liked drinking like that.
The absolute hardest thing about being a parent is knowing what to do. I couldn't decide if we should take her to the hospital. It costs a lot of money, and I don't know if they could actually do anything. Why do kids always get sick on the weekend when their peds are off? It's so good to be part of a team when the baby's sick. One of you holds the kid, and the other changeds the bed sheets. H is really good and patient when she's sick. Not with me, but with her.
My teaching partner had a bad weekend too and didn't come to class on Monday morning because she had to put her cat down. I was worried that I'd have to rush home to Leila and there would be noone left with the students!
This week I've had to keep track of what I eat for my midwives, and I've eaten worse than usual. the boss brought breakfast in for us on Monday, and it's lasted, and Anne brought in a decadent cake. My belly seems really big, especially today. I'm exhausted, and really I should be working, but I wanted to get this down.