Just 4 Alicia: The Never Ending Story

Well, A lot has happened in the last few days... are you all ready for this...might as well get comfy.

Lets go back to Saturday. Had a great time taking pictures at the Bormet Family Reunion/Birthday Party in Manhattan IL. here's a cute one of Alicia and Carl.

After this, we met up with the Haney's in Boilingbrook for supper at Ted's Montana Grill. We had a long day, and Alicia crashed as soon as we started on our way home.
(Just giving you a little back ground to the start of chaos). Sunday, we stopped over at our neighbor's house to visit as Alicia had arranged a play date. :) Our neighbor's niece, Abby, is about the same age as Alicia so it was cute to see the two run around together. On our way back home, was where the fun began.

Alicia wanted to walk back by herself and she did a really good job, until she fell. We didn't think anything of this at the time, but she did fall to her knees on the cement. I picked her up, and then we watched the Lions slaughter Da Bears. (I'm sure Tom was loving this). After the game (about 3pm) we noticed Alicia being unlike herself. She wasn't walking around much, and when she would she had a noticeable limp. She didn't want to put much weight on her left leg.

This prompted us to call the pediatrician which they had to page Dr. Ross. Ross called us back and suggested we go to the Pediatric ER. So we made it to the Emergency room by 4:30-5:00. and at this point I don't have a good recollection of time (except for the time we got home which was about 11pm).

When arriving at the ER, they had a pretty cool waiting room (too bad we couldn't have stayed there most of the time)... it had a table with metal piping which Alicia was able to move small objects thru them and so on. This passed the time really well. They also had a kiddie version of the PhotoHunt gaming system. I have to admit this was pretty cool.

We were triaged (she weighed 15lbs 15oz with clothes) and then waited only a few minutes until they had a room ready for her. After being in the room for a bit, the Nurse came in and wanted to get a little history. She seemed nice and then we waited some more. The registrar came into our room with a computer on wheels, which was pretty nifty, as we didn't have to wait in another line for this and make our stay even longer. They didn't have our doctor on their list, probably cause we used her hyphenated name, but we carried on and Alicia was finally registered. (at this point i'm like cool... we may be out of here by 8pm)

A little bit later, the doctor came in. She was a younger doctor and seemed pretty cool too. She basically said... lets take "2" xray's - one of the hip area and one of the lower leg. So a bit later, the techs came, things appeared to be going well.... Alicia didn't like the Xray too much... she didn't like being held down, go figure, who does? Anyways, so they took the pictures as Heather called it to try and calm Alicia down. Heather asked the nurse about the 2nd set of xrays and they said they took all they needed.

At this point its close to like 8-8:30 and Heather's getting hungry, so She runs out to get some food for us. The EMT guy then came in to take her vitals. (He was pretty cool having a ID tag of Spiderman and a few pics of Lightning McQueen on his scrubs that intrigued both daddy and Alicia :) He took her temp and noticed that her temp was over 103. This changed the equation for everything. So next, they gave Alicia some tylenol for the fever. Now as we find out about 30 mins later, that they need to take some blood tests because of the high fever.

So the original nurse comes in with another guy from the lab. They put the tourniquet on her right arm, and then realize the left arm is best. They take a lot of blood, and Alicia's not a happy camper having to wake up to blood being drawn. but she recovers and then goes back to sleep., again. (note this is all starting to go past Alicia's bedtime and not to mentioned suppertime too, poor girl) So, Heather then comes back from McDonalds/Dominicks to find out its going to be a longer night than we hoped.

After a little bit, I go to the front desk to ask the nurse about the xrays that were taken. She told me that they wanted to limit the radiation to the baby so they took a bigger picture of all they needed during the xrays, so they should have the entire leg in one shot. What do you know, it wasn't 45 minutes later when the doctor comes in and says that they didn't take the 2nd set of xrays that she really wanted. So about 30 minutes later we needed to go in and take the next set. Alicia was ok with these, probably cause she had just woke up from a nap again, and so we had not as much complaining from her.

A little bit later, and 2nd registrar lady came to register us. I informed her that we were already registered and she didn't want to believe me. I pointed her to the person who registered us, and then she realized we weren't the right people she was looking for. good grief!

Next round of fun, a new lab tech came in to get more blood. she came in and wanted to get it from Alicia's little ole finger. It bled for a good amount of time, no joking. anyways, the bandaids just didn't seem to cut it, and Alicia was crying and hyperventilating and was not a happy camper from the blood draw and the extra bleeding. Atleast 3 rounds of the alphabet song that Heather was trying to sing to her to calm her down, plus the few minutes of the Elmo video that we got from the ER video stock, finally saved the day. The pool lab tech was like I've never seen a little one's finger ever bleed THIS long! yeah, neither have we.... Now, newly interested in the bandaid, Alicia tries taking it off, not a good idea.. after about 10 minutes of it on her finger, she yanks it off, so we then asked for another small band aid and they didn't have anything that small, so a younger lady at the ER nurses desk then came in and made a makeshift baby bandaid for us which included gauze and hospital tape. she was so nice and kept calling Alicia "so cute"

So lastly, the EMT guy came in again and took her temp. This time it was alot better, still around a 100, but better. And he told us it looks like our stay here will be almost over, wohoo... After the 2nd xrays came in and the 2nd set of labs came in. The doctor essentially told us that they couldn't see anything explicit other than her body is fighting some infection and that we should follow up with our pediatrician in the next day or two, with discharge instructions take tylenol or motrin as needed.

Yeah... long day is over. We feel like the trip there was essentially worthless but it cleared our fear of a broken bone... but it gets better. Drew decided to take PTO to stay home with Alicia so that Heather could go in the office for work. We followed up with Dr. Ross, and we came in to see them that Monday afternoon.

We see her, and Alicia was burning up again. She was very lethargic earlier in the day, but i didn't think anything of it. Thought it was related to her not wanting to walk. But it appeared she had a fever of 103 again. so they were worried about this and not necessarily the limp. She says the limp is most likely related to some sort of infection. She checked her ears and saw a slight infection. We go home.. give her some amoxicillin and she starts walking around like she's always been. I came home from bowling and see her walking/talking and having a good time.

So that brings us to Tuesday. I go to work, (Heather stays home), and Heather starts to notice a few red spots on her belly/back. (it should be noted we had her 15month checkup 2 weeks ago which contained a shot for chicken pox). The was a handful of them here and there, no pattern, no rhyme or reason, just spots. Talked to doc again, and it may be reaction from chicken pox shot, as you have up to like a month after you get the shot to develop a breakthrough reaction.

So now today, Wednesday, the spots have gone down some, not as noticeable as yesterday, so that is good I think...still watching and checking spots. (and no, not noticeable enough for a pic to document this... sorry guys.)

So our saga will hopefully wrap-up on Thursday, as we visit the docs again and see how the medicine has been treating her.

We are as confused as anyone with this. I hope some of u made it thru that novel and understand that we are sorry we have been quite busy the last few days and that is why you haven't heard from us much. But we just want peanut to start being like herself again and not a walking germ.....