kisses are good medicine

This is for my record keeping so feel free to skip this post if you would like:)
The week before Thanksgiving Hannah had started waking up at night and wanted lots of snuggles. Monday night she slept 14 hours! Tuesday night (two days before thanksgiving) Hannah started having a fever. It was over 101 degrees. She was very tired that night when it was time to go to bed. We gave her some Tylenol and that seemed to help bring it down to 100 degrees. She woke up several times during the night, even more so than she had been doing previously. She was very sad and cried a great deal of the day Wednesday and we continued to dose her every 4-6 hours. By Wednesday night her fever spiked from 102 degrees that it had been during the day to 103.5 degrees. We debated on rather to call Matt or just wait. But decided it would be better to call him before 9 pm rather then wait until it was the middle of the night. He told us to switch between Motrin and Tylenol every three hours.

We had an even rougher night that night because she would wake up crying and that was about every 2 hours. Thursday morning we were all exhausted but wanted to go spend Thanksgiving with family. Hannah seemed more chipper even though her fever was staying at about 102 and her nose had begun to run. She became pretty grumpy a short while after arriving at the cabin. She wanted to be held and she was looking pretty sick. Matt took a look at her and said it looked viral but would probably be gone by Saturday. We decided to take her home. It was pretty funny because she came and sat by me and said," All done with kids." I guess she had had enough of other kids, that is not like her at all. By this point she hadn't really eaten very much the last three days. We had to make a drug stop on the way home because we had run out of childrens Motrin. She cried a lot and was very very fussy the rest of the day. Her fever again rose to be above 103 degrees. I kept giving her medicine, thinking this has got to start getting better.
Friday, she cried almost non stop the whole entire day and of course her fever was between 101-103 depending on when she had last taken some medication. She stopped eating completely and wouldn't drink anything and developed a cough. By about 8 pm she had very little urine output and it was very concentrated (it's nice when they use a potty so you can keep a better eye). I noticed she had sores, one looked like a cold sore in her mouth and the other looked like thrush. She had been crying non stop and the fever had spiked up to 103.6 degrees so I called Matt and talked to him. He came over and looked at her. We decided it would be best to put her in the hospital on an IV and so some tests could be taken. He was so kind as to offer to watch Bella for us for the night and Melissa was kind enough not to mind.
We spent 2 nights and 1 day in the hospital. It seemed like a long time. I was so glad she was on an IV because she stopped having tears and wouldn't drink anything for about 12 hours and then after that is was just a sip or bite here or there. The blood work they did said that her white blood cell count and cbc(at least I think that's what is was) were high. That poor little girl cried after they did anything to her, even just checking and cleaning her ears sent her in to hysterics. Getting the IV put in her arm, I think was one of the more traumtic experiences. I was so glad Dan was there to hold her, she fought with everything she had. After the first poke she kept crying, "I got an owie! I got an owie!" "Mommy, i want to hold you! Mommy!" It was hard but I knew it was for the best. Another really hard thing was our last night there when she woke up screaming and wouldn't take any comfort and was in a ball on her bed crying so hard. It took forever to calm her down. I know I cried during that episode. It was very exhausting because she did not sleep well at night at all. I knew she was very sick because on Saturday she spent all day sitting her in hospital bed playing with toys and watching movies. She NEVER sits still that long! The longest she will sit still is 15 min. By Sunday morning I knew she was feeling better because she wanted to be up and walking around and kept trying to leave the room to go home :) I think one of the hardest things was having Daniel at work all day and evening on Saturday, I will admit I might have been a bit of an emotional wreck through it all. Just being an over worried mom. But hey isn't that part of of the job?? It probably didn't help that I started getting sick while there :)
The test results came back Sunday evening, Matt called us on Monday and told us the results. I guess she had two viruses (maybe three ?) but she seems to be doing better. She still had a runny nose and cough but no fever and seems to be acting like her old self! She still isn't eating as much as she did before she got sick but is still eating non the less. She has two new favorite items: some chapstick she was given the hospital for her bleeding lips and a Harley Davidson monkey which she now HAS to have when she goes to bed. Two other items, we a big huge blanket that has turtles on one side and fairies on the other, and when Julie and Becca brought over dinner for us they brought a bear that has wings. Hannah LOVES putting it in Bella's car seat or the front of her bike, guess it is her new 'baby.' So a big thank you to Matt and Melissa, and Joe and Julie! You guys are awesome. We love you, and not just because you were so nice to us ;)

One of her better shots.


Bella sitting in the rocking chair beside the bed. This was taken right before she had a HUGE blow out........great timing Bella. :)

If you made it to the end, thank you for caring enough to read it all the way through! I thought of a story as I was getting ready end the post that I wanted to remember. When we first got there on Friday night one of the things they wanted a sample of was some urine. The nurse said she would prefer if we could catch it some other way because she hated giving catheters to little ones. And since Hannah is in the process of being potty trained we said we could try and catch it in a cup. We tried and told her she needed to go in the cup but at that point she hadn't urinated for about 8 hours so we decided to wait. Long story short, she didn't go in the cup and ended up just getting a bag the next afternoon. But what's so funny is just the other day I heard Hannah saying "Go pee in the cup." I was wondering what she was talking about and told her she didn't need to go pee in a cup and just using the potty was fine. Then she pulls this little medicine measuring cup( you know the ones that are on top of medicine bottles) out from between her legs and said," OK." I kept laughing and laughing! I mean it had been almost a week since the hospital and she still remembered. Surprisingly she speaks positively of her hospital stay, I guess it must have been a lot more traumatic for mom.

Two good things that came out of the hospital stay: Hannah officially potty trained herself. She now tells me whenever she has to go potty, we've only had 2 accidents since we came home and one was in the middle of the night. She now will insist on going potty before going to bed and nap time. She wakes up about every other morning with a dry diaper and goes potty almost as soon as she wakes up! And she stays dry while out or lets me know when she has to go potty. The second thing is, she finally does not need a bottle of water to go to sleep. She hated taking a bottle while she was sick and I guess that week cured her of needing it to fall asleep.