Poor baby Caroline!

Caroline has had quite a rough week!  Saturday night (two days after her birthday) she started running a fever.  I kept her home from church Sunday, but her fever was down all day.  Then it went back up that night.  Monday it was down again and I headed to Greenwood with the girls for a few days while Luke went to a ministers' conference in Nashville.  Monday night the fever was back.  Tuesday, she was fine.  Tuesday night her temperature at bedtime was 102.  She went to bed fine, but woke up inconsolable at 10:30.  She was also really cold and shivering.  I took her temp and it was 96.  I woke up Margo (Luke's mom) and we decided to take her to the ER.  We just weren't sure what was wrong and felt we better be safe.  Well, it was quite an experience!

We arrived around 11pm and the check-in and triage nurses were great.  Caroline's temp was still low but she was acting ok at this point.  We got moved back to a room and the doctor came to check her out.  He found nothing abnormal on her.  Ears were fine, throat was fine, everything was fine.  So he ordered every test known to man.  Poor baby had a chest x-ray (while strapped to a papoose board), a throat swab, a nose swab, a urine cath, and worst of all, she was stuck FIVE different times by four different nurses trying to draw blood.  Her little veins are apparently not very easy to find.  She really was amazing throughout all of this.  Of course she screamed during each procedure, but then she calmed down and either nursed or slept in between everything.  She even giggled and did some of her animal sounds while waiting!

Finally, at 4am, we got enough blood to do CBC and they found that her white blood cell count was a little low.  The doctor ordered a shot of antibiotic in case it was a bacterial infection and after we waited the required 30 minutes to make sure she didn't have an allergic reaction, we were sent home with orders to come back in 24 hours for a recheck.  We decided to have her rechecked by our pediatrician here in Camden and it turns out she actually had roseola, a very common childhood virus.  She is completely better now except for the reddish splotchy tummy and back which indicates the end of the sickness.  So no more fever and other than a little fussiness from a completely missed night of sleep, she is perfectly fine!

I obviously didn't pack my camera in the diaper bag in the rush to the hospital, but Margo took this one on her phone! 

Speaking of Margo, I am SO thankful she was with me while Luke was gone!  I couldn't have done it without her.  And special thanks to Sam who babysat a sleeping Anna Kate back at the house the whole time!