What a Week!

Prior to this week I was thinking how you never know what a week will bring. Most weeks are full of expected highs and lows and the weekend is always a bright spot. Some weeks are terrific and full of excitement, and some have a life altering event waiting for you. This week wasn't necessarily life altering, but it certainly went differently than I had expected.

Sunday evening Jenna woke up from a nap with a fever. I didn't think much of it as she is in the teething stage and is little. Small children get fevers fairly often, without reason and are usually short lived. I gave her some tylenol and we went to the birthday party for a niece.

That night was a bear with a feverish Jenna and little sleep. I cancelled my workout class and still hold onto the hope that things would get better. Monday night was bad again, but I held out hope for Tuesday. There was no improvement with a very high fever of 104.5 on Tuesday morning. That afternoon when Jenna started having a hard time keeping things down I decided a visit to the Pediatrician may be necessary.

I called the office at 3:30 p.m. and was grateful they still had an open appointment that day.  I quickly dropped Natalie off at my moms. Justin met me at the office. When we got back to the exam room I noticed she was starting to develop little spots on her hands and feet.

I pointed these out to the Physician, but because she did not have spots in her mouth she said it probably wasn't hand foot and mouth. Instead she ran a strep culture and did a urine analysis. For the next two hours Jenna was evaluated and then waited on to give a urine sample. During that time we spilled our sippy cup everywhere, Jenna puked all over me, and she screamed her head off. I was so grateful Justin had come with me to help out.

Eventually we decided to just catheterize her to get the sample. It showed signs of infection, so we were given a prescription for a Urinary Tract Infection and sent on our way. Saying that if the fevers did not stop by Friday to come back in. We were tired and relieved to have an answer.

I had been working for the past 6 weeks on organizing a Day Camp for our Activity Day Girls. I had originally lined up babysitters for the girls, but now that was not going to work out and I didn't even know if I could go at all. Justin is amazing and offered to stay home with the girls. That night again was a terror as Jenna started vomiting and having a hard time keeping anything down. We finally got a little bit of sleep in. I headed to the church that morning, hoping all would be well now that we had antibiotics. I got the activity going and everything was moving smoothly. I called Justin at 10 to see how things were going and he said not good. She again had a fever of 104 and was puking again.

I told the other leaders at the activity I had to go. I called the doctor and got a prescription of Zofran to help with the vomiting. I learned that babies could have Zofran from when Natalie was little and had a horrible 10 day stomach flu. When I got home Justin said that more spots had showed up. Later that afternoon I found one in her mouth. This poor girl did have a UTI and Hand Foot and Mouth. We saw a lot of improvement by Wednesday evening. Again her fever spiked Thursday morning. Days have been good for her, but late evenings and mornings the fever will reappear. We finally took her back to the doctor Friday, at their request.

We both agreed that if this was a case of just UTI or just Hand Foot and Mouth we would expect the fevers to be gone, but because it is both, we just need to watch and wait. As long as she is showing improvement things are going well. Today there was slight fever and she was happy upon waking. I am so grateful to see her crawling around and screeching again.

She will still be healing from her little blisters for a while, but hopefully the UTI will be gone. It is such a blessing that she was slow to get sores in her mouth, because otherwise the physician would not have caught the UTI. We have also been so grateful for the many kinds words from friends and family and the meals that have been brought to us. We are also grateful for health.

It has been a long, sleep deprived, interesting week, but I think we have all learned and been shown once again that we can do hard things, and that the Lord is always with us in our struggles. Here's to hoping next week is better!

Justin and Ruth Blazzard