The Worst Hour of My Life

Background:
Katherine had a small fever starting Tuesday. Besides a fever she was acting her normal self except more clingy than usual. A problem with her having a fever was no sleep for me. I would set my alarm for when her medicine would wear off, check her fever, give her medicine, wait 30 minutes, check to make sure the fever was going down, repeat all night with a few extra times of checking on her…

Wednesday night Jason and I went to check on her around 11PM. She was burning and her fever was 103.3! That’s the highest it’s ever been. Luckily her doctor has a 24hr nurse service. The nurse said they didn’t worry about numbers so much as they did behavior. Kate wasn’t lethargic, didn’t have any cold symptoms, and was still her active self. She’s so sweet that even though she had a 103 temperature and was just woken up by us she was laughing and babbling away. I mean really could she be any sweeter and cuter?!

Thursday afternoon she still had a fever so I took her into the doctors. Their concern was that this was the 3rd day of having a fever and she didn’t have any “sick” symptoms.

Worst Hour of my Life:
I wake poor Kate from her nap to take her to the doctors. Kate’s amazing doctor was out that day so we had to see someone else. The doctor does the usual check up stuff then I have to hold her down while she extensively checks her ears. The dr. checks and checks her ears while Kate’s crying. She told me they had to be positive it wasn’t an ear infection b/c when a baby has a high fever for so long with no other symptoms it can be a UTI. These are bad in babies since they can easily turn into a kidney infection. The doctor then tells me they’re going to have to give her a catheter. This is where I start to lose it.

I then proceed to hold Kate down while two nurses administer the catheter and Kate cries and I bite my lip while tears roll down my face. Well, Kate had just had a diaper so they couldn’t get anything. It was all for nothing! They then decide to prick her toe to check if her white blood cells were elevated (that would mean an infection). While I’m waiting for the nurse Kate takes her baby, hugs her and lays her head on me. Again, I’m about to lose it. When the nurse comes in, Kate looks at her and starts crying. They prick her toe but her blood isn’t flowing freely so it takes forever. Her blood work is fine and I’m sent home being told to bring her back in the morning if she still has a fever. I get in the car, try to call and update Jason, but break down and can barely talk to him over my crying. What makes it even sadder was as soon as we get in the car Kate’s laughing and being extremely sweet even after everything she’s been through.

Update:
Kate’s fever miraculously went down and stayed down! No more doctor! Here is where I’m conflicted. This was our first time taking Kate to the doctor for being sick. (Sort of; the first time I thought she had an outer ear infection but it turned out to be a mosquito bite :) ) I don’t know how it’s normally handled. On one hand I’m glad the doctor was so thorough on the other this wasn’t her fantastic doctor so I don’t know if it was handled well. Everyone was nice and understanding but was it really necessary to put Katherine through all that? It was awful and by far the worst hour of my entire life :(