what timing...

Wow, almost exactly 12 hours after my last post, we are home from the ER. She was admitted fairly quickly and, apparently, right before a rush. Autumn was extremely dehydrated by the time we got the iv into her and it appears that she managed to develop bronchitis pretty much overnight.

IT WAS SO SAD.

Autumn's skin was papery, her little drool rash was fire red, and it took them THREE TRIES to find a vein for taking blood and for inserting the IV. They tapped around her feet first...nothing. Found a vein in her right elbow but, after inserting the needle, lost it. Same thing in her right wrist. They didn't want to do the left hand because she prefers sucking that thumb but they were able to get the needle in. Her blood was flowing so slowly that they literally had to drip her blood from the thing that they insert to start the IV into tiny vials.

Anyway, 11 hours condensed into a short story, here are the reasons we were there so long:
1. After an hour of IV fluids, her heart rate and fever were still up and no wet diaper (she had not had one in about 24 hours by this point).
2. After another hour of fluids, no wet diaper and her fever spiked from 100-101 to over 103. Heart rate still up.
3. More fluids, a slightly wet diaper, motrin AND tylenol later, still a high heart rate so they wanted her to nurse to see if that would lower it.
4. More fluids, no fever, lowered heart rate, and a nursing session later, we got to go home.

I think that's how it went, at least. It is all running together. But, Autumn is improved. She's squishably soft again and her temp is under control. And, I have some pedialyte and a syringe to use if necessary so we can avoid this in the future. Please continue to keep her in your prayers because she's still not eating much and she's very hoarse and phlegmy. I am supposed to make an appointment for Friday so I will be able to get an update on how she's doing.

And, a special thank you to Mike's parents who came out and spent some A LOT of time with us, brought us food, and got us the motrin and pedialyte we needed. My mom would have come but I told her at five o'clock that we'd be leaving soon and it wouldn't be worth the drive. ::eyeroll::

Sigh. I am ready to have my happy monkey back.