106.4

The evening of January 1st, Penelope had a temperature of 105. We called the on call nurse and we were instructed to go to the nearest emergency room. We were admitted right away. Her vitals and temperature were taken. Turns out she had a temperature of 106.4. She was given A LOT of tests to identify the cause of this high fever. For her urinary test a catheter had to be used. Being a general hospital and not a children's hospital, the medical staff was not very experience in putting one in. It took four nurses to put one in. I've never heard her or any baby scream like she did for what seemed an eternity. I kept hearing, "I see it, I think I got it, no, " finally after the first two, Penelope was given a break. The next two nurses took less time getting her urine out, but that was really only the beginning. Next, they had to draw blood. They were hoping to be efficient by drawing blood at the same spot her IV would go in. Unfortunately, after a bloody mess, they had to move to the other hand. They couldn't put a local anesthetic because it would be harder to find her vein. They couldn't draw enough blood on the first hand, so after her IV was going, they had to poke her again at her inner elbow. But wait, there's more. They had to do a nasal swab to make sure it wasn't influenza. It's this thing that goes way way up her nose. To make sure she doesn't have pneumonia, they took an x-ray of her chest. She wasn't too happy with that either. Fortunately her tests came out clear. The doc determined it is a viral infection. We were instructed to give her ibuprofen and Tylenol and see her pediatrician the next day for a follow up.

This was a very traumatic experience for Penelope and us. We had tickets to go see family and friends down in So. Cal. in February, but we have canceled those plans. Even if it's a slight risk she'll get sick from the plane, it's still a slight risk we want to rule out. We've created a flight ban. No flying this winter and no visitors off a plane. Oh, we found out from our Doc that the on call nurse is required by law to say, "go to the nearest hospital". Really, we should have gone to the children's hospital.