In the Trenches

..and now for the least fun part of parenting: illness.

It totally stinks to see your little ones ill. It is the closest that I have come to almost physically feeling my heart break! You realize just how vulnerable these little people who were entrusted to you, a mere human, can be. When their little eyes look up to you for answers, and you don't necessarily have them, it's tough. Really tough.

Especially when you have two other kids to tend to, and a husband who is traveling.

When Danielle got sick for the first time on Wednesday night, my mind raced. She had a fever a few days prior, but she seemed to have gotten over that. Until that point, there were no other symptoms of illness aside from the fever. Now, two days after the fever broke, I was holding poor Danielle's hair as she hovered over the toliet. This first bout lasted for about three hours. I am pretty sure that she and I only slept for about an hour and a half of that whole night.

I made an appointment the next morning for Dani to see our main family doctor. He checked her out, and after reviewing her file and seeing that she wasn't running a fever, I was given the typical prognosis: a virus. Keep giving her Pedialyte, watered down Gatorade, the BRAT (bananas, rice, applesauce, toast) diet, and give her baths throughout the day to keep bacteria from getting into areas that I didn't want it to be.

I left, knowing that I had a feeling that Danielle was battling something more. But she didn't have a fever...so I was clearly being a mommy hypochondriac. Or so I thought.

Thursday night- around 10:00, Danielle woke up again. Same thing. Ugh. Another long night.

Friday- Danielle kept repeating "OW, OW, OW...". Okay, Danielle is usually my no-drama-mama when it comes to illness. She's my silent sufferer. So, if she's saying that something hurts, then..well, IT DOES! Brent happened to come home today for the weekend (which, is AWESOME and the topic for a future post), so once he got home, I called and got a referral for Dani to go to an Urgent Care.

This time, I had a plan in mind. I was GOING to have her urine tested. I didn't CARE that she didn't have a fever that was high enough- I knew that she had a urinary tract infection. I took her in, and as soon as I saw the nurse, I laid out my suspicions. She asked if Danielle could pee in a hat, and I said yes. I had made sure that she had drunk plenty of fluids before coming in. Danielle gave me a little sample to send to a lab; and sure enough, I was RIGHT!!!

Boo-YAH!

So, even though the doctor was suprised at the results because she didn't have ALL of the typical symptoms, I am so glad that I pushed the envelope and defended my "mommy gut." We now have her on antibiotics. Dani did get sick again tonight, but after the antibiotics, it was MUCH less intense than the previous nights' bouts. I am confident that she's on the road to recovery; and her "OW's" have greatly subsided already.

I am convinced that, while medical professionals are wonderful, "mommy guts" are NEEDED! If it weren't for those, I am no longer entirely convinced that we would have survived as a species!