my drama for the year, checked off in February ...

[molly_o]

Yesterday, the BG was a little off her feed -- which is COMPLETELY unlike her, she is normally a hearty eater. She actually wanted to skip her lunch and go straight to her nap(!).

Later in the afternoon, she took *another* nap and also began to complain that her tummy hurt. She had a slight fever as well, so I gave her some acetaminophen before dinner. She seemed fine after dinner -- dancing around and throwing a basketball into a laundry basket with Mark -- but around 10, she woke up crying and hot, and I gave her another dose of acetaminophen.

At midnight, she woke up again, and I took her temp and it was 101.8 (in her armpit -- which is equivalent to almost 104). Which, OK, toddlers get fevers, but 104 is awfully high, and it was too soon for more acetaminophen, and she was still saying her tummy hurt ...

So I called the insurance company's nurse advice line, and they asked me 20 40 questions and said we should get her looked at within the next three hours.

We ended up at the ER. They were all SUPER nice and sweet to her and asked all the same questions as the nurse advice line and finally suggested we take her to Children's (b/c the radiologists at Children's are better at interpreting small ultrasounds/CT scans to rule out appendicitis).

So around 2:30 am we packed her up and headed over to Children's, where we answered the same questions and waited some more, and around 4 am a very nice NP mushed all around her abdomen and concluded it was almost certainly NOT appendicitis and got a throat swab and a urine sample.

Shortly before 6, they said she was negative for all the things they could test for on the spot, and gave her a grape popsicle and some Dora stickers (gotta love Children's!) and sent us home, where we all slept until noon.

Comments

[beledibabe]

So glad she's okay! Yeah, that's very, very scary. (Sez the one who had peritonitis at age 4.)

[molly_o]

Yipes!!

That's just what I was afraid of, and I was very reassured that the ER people at both hospitals took it seriously; I thought they might just dismiss me as an anxious mom.

[gblvr]

I'm glad she's okay, but what *do* they think it is if it's not her appendix?

[molly_o]

They said it was likely just a run-of-the-mill childhood virus. (They checked for strep -- which can cause stomach pain, who knew? -- and also a UTI, but both were negative.)

The first doc pressed her belly very lightly -- I think he wasn't used to little kids, he was very tentative about it. The NP at Children's really was mushing the heck out of her belly, and V didn't even flinch.

(She also started complaining she was hungry on her way to Children's, which was reassuring, if a little infuriating. In retrospect, she was kinda hilarious -- so sad and pitiful while I was on the line with the nurse, and then in the car heading to the ER she was talking a mile a minute, so excited about going to the hospital. If she were a little older, I'd be suspicious, but I don't see how a 3-y-o could fake a fever.)

Her appetite's not quite back to normal, but it's a lot better than yesterday. Her fever came back this evening, but I'm alternating acetaminophen and ibuprofen to keep it down.