The saga continues…

Last night I willingly gave up a full night sleep to satisfy the questions of my heart and I am glad that I did.?? I was getting myself worked into a frenzy with worry and wouldn’t have slept anyhow and then would have been no better off.

I put her to bed last night at 10:30 PM with a 100.5 ear temp.?? I determined to go in there at regular intervals and check her temp.?? When I checked at 11:45 PM, her ear temp was up to 102.3.?? At that point, we packed up the kids, dropped the boys off with Papa and Sweetie and went back to Mendy’s Place (our local ER).

I forgot to mention that Tori’s weight last week (while DRESSED) was 22.8 pounds.?? Last night (while dressed) it was 21.6.?? Tiny little thing considering she will be two in one month from tomorrow!?? In fact, the ER Dr. commented on her very petite bone size and asked what her genetic history was in relation to her size.

Her fever got up to 102.8 in the ER rectally and again, the Dr. was baffled.?? This time I decided to be brave and shoot straight.?? I told the Dr. that as much as I couldn’t stand to have the thoughts or utter the words, I needed to be honest about my concerns so that we could do our best to rule them out.?? I explained that I was not comfortable yet with her last blood anaylasis and that a resurface of the fever on day eight made the virus theory suspicious (unless of course she has started a brand new virus after being in the ER and the hospital).?? I let her know that I wanted leukemia, HIV, and HEP C ruled out.?? With her birth history, there are many possibilities?? and I don’t remember ever HIV testing her.?? HIV is another disease that hits the platelet count in a wonky way.

The Dr. did another blood test and THANK YOU JESUS it was COMPLETELY normal!

WBC is up to 11.8 from a low of 3.6 last week
Platelet Count up to a whopping 291 from a low of 96 last week

She then did another urine analysis to see if a bladder infection had developed as a new symptom post being cathed four times.?? Urine was perfect.?? She did a chest Xray to check for possible pneumonia.?? We didn’t suspect this to be the case since she had no other symptoms but I didn’t suspect pneumonia last January either and our biggest symptom was fever issues then too.?? No pneumonia.?? Lungs clear.

The Dr. then admitted to me that their concern last week was indeed leukemia.?? I knew that but it wasn’t any easier having her confirm it.?? HOWEVER, she said that she feels confident ruling out the serious issues like leukemia and HIV at this point because if she were struggling with something that serious that was causing her bone marrow to go on the fritz, she wouldn’t have been able to recover her WBC and Platelet count to normal ranges in such a short amount of time.

Finally, I heard a theory that made sense. Hearing that alone was worth spending the night in the ER!?? My ulcer was killing me at that point but I was lighter than air when we got those blood results back.

So who knows what Tori is fighting and if this is the primary ailment or if something new started last night but viruses I can deal with and without any more evidence otherwise, we are comfortable making that assumption as well at this point.

We decided to wait a few days before visiting the pediatrician because he won’t do much more than what they have done already at this point and I want to see if her fevers continue off and on for the next few days.?? If she is still fevering by the end of the week, I think we need to continue our search for the root cause because few viruses (to my knowledge) go past 14 days of intermittent fevers and if they do, something needs to be treated for goodness sake.

She only had a couple of hours sleep in the ER and wasn’t actually “put to bed” until almost 7:00 AM.?? Jim and I are exhausted but at least we are happy exhausted!?? She is behaving fairly normally.?? Poor appetite and still a bit cranky but otherwise normal.?? As I said before, the fevers haven’t bothered her much.?? Had she not had the bladder problem, she would have been mildly affected by all this in the last 8 days.?? I just laid her back down for a nap and she is in the 99 range so I expect she will have a fever when she wakes up but we’ll just wait this out a bit and see what happens.

Again, thank you so much for praying for Tori.?? It has been a terrible horrible no good very bad first week of 2010 but since it started the last two days of 2009, let’s chalk it up to a reflection on last year.?? I am ready to pretend that today is New Year’s Day!?? :)?? And to celebrate….Jim and I bought a new couch set hee hee.?? We have been whining and whining about our sectional for a very long time now and after being very uncomfortable in the hospital last week and then coming home and realizing that we weren’t much happier on our couch at home, we finally decided to bite the bullet and invest in a new family room set.?? They come in Wed and I am so excited!?? To those who got my furniture text – Aunt Becky grabbed both our sectional and the plum recliner in about 10 seconds.?? Ahhhhh…..looking forward to some nice rest in our own home on our new and wonderful couches that have a total of five reclining seats between the couch, love seat and recliner.?? Yipppppeeeeee!!!!?? (Tanner doesn’t like them though.?? Our son hates change.?? Funny.)

Folks….I hope I have nothing more to say about this.?? Love to you all and HAPPY NEW YEAR!?? 😉