ER Visit

We had our first Chemo scare this week. It was a night full of complete panic. 

LadyBug had her 2 year well baby check up on Tuesday. She did pretty well all day but later that afternoon she start getting this horrible cough and by later that evening she had spiked a little fever. While on chemo if Rylie's temperature hits 100.4 or higher we monitor her for an hour, take her temperature again and then call into the on-call oncologist and see what we should do if it had not returned to a normal range. At around 6pm that evening we took Rylie's temperature and she was at 100.8-immediate panic set it. I knew she had gotten the Hepatitis A shot that day but before when she got shots before she never really ran a fever... and then there was that cough. It was not anything major but put all those things together and it just spelled trouble. Trouble I was no where near comfortable with. 

We quickly finished up dinner and then settled in for some cartoons to see if we could get her fever to drop a little. While Rylie is going through chemo she can not have any Tylenol or Ibuprofen because a fever could be a sign of an internal infection or another serious complication and taking other medications could only mask those signs so our options to lower her fever are super limited. So, we tried some rest. An hour later her temperature came in at 100.4. Still too high for comfort so after speaking to the oncologist we were told to jump in the car and head up to the ER at Primary Children's Hospital for evaluation and fluids. 

It's a short drive from Bountiful but man does it seem like forever when you are running through all of the "what if's". The oncologist had called in ahead of time and told them we were on our way so they were prepared with some fluids and antibiotics for Rylie when we got there. That's when the real fun began...

First, let me start off by saying EVERYONE at Primary Children's has been amazing. It takes a special kind of person to work with sick kids and for the most part every experience we have had up there has been amazing but this visit was a complete nightmare!!! We had a super sweet nurse but man did she put our little ladybug through the ringer. Accessing Rylie's port has been a bit of an issue these last few times so we are all pretty sensitive on if and when she should be accessed. Because of her fever there was no doubt Rylie would need to be accessed. At the very least she would be given fluids and some IV antibiotics. We explained the situation to the ER nurses and told them the best bet would be to get child life involved. Child life was busy with another patient so I guess they decided it would be best to just continue on...That was problem number one. Taking her out of her routine is something none of us were comfortable with! Then came problem number two... they decided against waiting for the numbing cream to take effect and instead decided they would just use the freezing spray. Note to all parents... the freezing spray SUCKS and does not help your child one bit! There is a reason oncology uses the cream!!! That was straw that broke the camel's back for Rylie. She was not a fan and began fighting immediately! Then came the biggest problem of all... the nurse had never accessed a pediatric port!!! Rylie was stabbed 3 times and each time they "Missed" the access point. As you can imagine by now Rylie was in complete hysterics. Crying and screaming and begging us to just help her. She just kept saying over and over again that she wanted to go home. She was crying, I was crying, and poor Brett was just trying to figure out how to keep us all from completely falling apart. After missing a few times the nurse decided she needed some help and grabbed 2 more nurses. But it was just a little too late. Rylie was ticked and there was no way she was going to let anyone touch her. She fought, oh man did she fight. It took Brett and I AND 3 nurses to hold her down so they could get her accessed and hooked up to the IV's. It was just a nightmare. Poor thing cried for a good hour after it was done and over with and each time someone even tried to come into the room she burst into tears again- It was completely heart breaking! 

Finally after she was accessed and hooked up to the IV's we were able to relax a little bit while we waited for her blood work to come back. Let's Just say I have never been SO happy to see Frozen on a TV as I was that night. It was the only thing that calmed her down and brought at least a little smile to her face! Thank god for Elsa and Olaf! :) 

Thank goodness we have Toby to Snuggle 

It took a few hours but her blood work came back within the normal range for a chemo patient so we were told we did not have to stay overnight (insert happy dance and a HUGE sign of relief)! They were still pretty concerned with her cough and increased heart rate so they wanted us to stay a few more hours and get her re-hydrated and let the antibiotics kick in. So, little Miss and I snuggled up and closed our eyes and waited until we got the go ahead to go home! Just after midnight they finally felt like her heart rate and temperature had stabilized enough to send us home! De-accessing her port was another nightmare but we were going home so I think by that point all of us just tolerated it and knew in just a few minutes we would be heading home and away from the pain. 

Hospital Snuggles

Rylie is still battling the cough and she is in a bit of pain from being accessed so we are just taking things slow and allowing her the time she needs to rest and recover. She is still a little traumatized the the whole ER experience so we are back to square one with getting her use to her port. Hopefully with some help from the oncology team we will get her back to her happy, playful self in no time! 

Thank you for all of your love, support, and prayers! We are forever grateful!