Because it just doesn’t get any better:

Baby’s first ER visit!

Thismorning, about 630, I was like "hmm, Ingrid seems really hot, get the thermometer…" the temporal registered 101.6, so I gave her some motrin and we tucked back into bed. I gave her some Tylenol a few hours later, and then Motrin at noon, and we went to lunch with Debbie and came home and she napped and Dave was home, and so when she woke up, I nursed her and went upstairs with the EW Year in Review issue. I didn’t get far, when dave was like "Ingrid’s acting… weird."  I went down, and she was trembling, her hands were turning purplish, and she just looked Not Right. Aaaaannnd, of course this was 2 minutes after the ped’s office closed (no shit, 2 minutes) so I called Andy’s mom, who was a nurse for years, including in the urgent care clinic, and said "is this cool?" She basically said "it might be the fever coming back, but if you’re worried, take her in," sort of validating that I wasn’t being a nervous nellie. So, off we go….

By the time we get to the ER, the quaking is gone, and her hands are pink again, but she spikes a 103.9 fever, and the triage nurse jacks her up on tylenol suppositories and sends us back to the waiting room, where we choose a spot far, far away from anyone with a wastebasket at their feet. (*shudder*) She’s a little furnace, and snuggles on me for a while, takes a nap, they check her temp after about an hour and it’s at 101.7, so we go back to the waiting room.  When we did get seen, the PAC said that probably what we saw was ‘viremia,’ which googling only brings up weird shit in rats or really awful shit in humans, but his explanation was that if she has a virus, the cells build up and then explode into the body at once, and that big blast can spike the fever, cause the shaking, etc. It wasn’t a seizure (and I was sure of that from the get-go) but basically like a bad case of the chills, infant-style. He checked her ears and all of that, rechecked her temp a few times, and sent us home with the staggered Motrin/Tylenol routine, some saline for her nose, a rectal thermometer, and pedialyte in case she gets pukey. (Note on the rectal: when I was having her, we were always checked with a temporal or ear thermometer when they did vitals, so I figured our temporal was great, but the triage nurse guy was a nicu nurse before, and said that those thermometers are all crap, that it all has to do with hospitals getting bonuses for using them on the floor, and it’s all marketing and the good nurses and docs will only do rectal temps on an infant, because it’s the only accurate one. He then showed Dave how to do it — like cord care, Dave can have ass care, too — and sent us home with one. I’m not tossing my temporal, because I think it’s good for adults, and probably bigger kids it’s okay, too, but butt temps will be dave’s new area of expertise. Ingrid is not that thrilled.)

We came home and gave her motrin and put her in bed, but GODDAMN, ER visits blow. AND, the whole time we’re at the ER, we’re brainstorming what that means for This Weekend, because — rightly so — Dave doesn’t want to be alone wiht Ingrid in the willywags, an hour from the nearest hospital (which is one my parents refuse to go to because of the notoriously bad care) while I’m being Grieving Cousin.  On top of logistics, Explaining to Grammie is discussed, too, which actually ended up being moot — my mom was like "Oh, no, don’t come tomorrow! Don’t feel bad about going to the ER, if you think something is wrong, YOU TAKE HER TO THE ER, blah blah." So, NOW what will happen is that none of us will go to the visitation hours, but we’ll all go up on Sunday for the funeral, and for the family gathering at his house after.  I fulfill my duty (and I want to be there for my aunt and his kids, too, of course) and it gives my visiting relatives a chance to meet Ingrid (which they’ve expressed excitement about, this isn’t me using a funeral to show off my kid) and by not making it an overnight, that makes everything easier.

I watched the ‘tribute video,’ a slideshow the funeral home puts together and shows at the visiting hours and online, and good lord, did I cry. THose pooooor fucking kids. Just breaks my heart. Sigh.