Our First Visit To CHEO

Well, we finally had to bring someone to the hospital yesterday. Two nights ago, Evelyn had a screaming session unparalleled to anything we'd experienced with her before. She was sobbing, to the point that she was still trying to catch her breath an hour later. It was disconcerting because she sounded like she was in pain, but she fell asleep and was fine at the midnight feed.

Throughout yesterday, she ate very poorly. She felt fine to me, but something was off. At the 2pm feed, she completely refused to eat. That has never happened. I put her to bed, thinking that she must be too tired to eat. Twenty minutes later she woke up and I tried again. Again, she wouldn't touch a drop. Then I noticed that her breathing was odd; she was making little grunting noises with every breath. I took her temperature again and it registered normal, but she felt warm to me. I mentioned all of this to Edward and he immediately suggested we take her to the hospital. Being that Edward is anything but alarmist, this was a little surprising. By fortuitous circumstance, my parents happened to be visiting and our doula was scheduled to work from 6pm to 10pm last night, so we knew we'd have someone at home to take care of the boys. We bundled Evelyn up and took her to CHEO.

The line to get to the first triage station at the door was already long. We were then ushered into a waiting room full of coughing, sneezing kids. We tucked ourselves into a corner and waited to have our first assessment. When we finally got there, the nurse examined Evelyn and quickly determined that she had a fever of 39.4, and that her heart rate was elevated. She gave her some Tylenol and sent us back to the waiting room. Five hours after we got there, we were finally assigned to a room where we were seen by another nurse and a doctor. Her fever had subsided considerably and her heart rate had slowed to a more normal pace; everything else checked out perfectly with the exception of her urine. After 7.5 hours, we learned that Miss E has a urinary tract infection. We got her first dose of antibiotics there, rushed home got her bathed and in her pyjamas for the midnight feed alongside her brothers. We are SO fortunate that the doula offered to stay past midnight!! Last night, Edward ran out and filled the prescription, so she got her second dose along with some Tylenol this morning. She is zonked! But she was very, VERY good at the hospital and when we ran out of formula the hospital provided us with two bottles, so they were amazing too! She seems to be feeling a little better this morning, but she looks pale and is unsurprisingly quite tired and fussy. I hope she'll be feeling better by Sunday!

WE are zonked, because a certain Mister C has taken to waking up several times during the night in a foul mood and with no modesty in expressing this.

And, oh, Keith is teething! He's been very fussy these last few days and nights, so we sorta half-heartedly took a look at his gums because it's quite early to start teething at 5 months, particularly for a "premie" who is just 3 months corrected age. But lo, there are two little white bumps on his lower gum. Evelyn has them, too. Their gums have swollen to twice their original size. Of course, it could take months before we see the teeth emerge, but we're on our way!

Such is life at the Zoo ;)