Everyone went back to school Monday except Maddie who I think just needed another day to recoup mentally. We were supposed to leave Tuesday right after school to go to Salt Lake for the wedding. When I picked the girls up from school Tuesday, her teacher said Ellie had been complaining of a tummy ache and running to the bathroom frequently. I took a mental note of this, looked back at Ellie who grinned at me and then we headed home to do the last minute prep before heading out of town
As soon as we got home, Ellie ran for the bathroom. When she came out, she said there was "pink stuff" in the toilet. Being the nurse that I am, I had to go look, of course. My first thought was that it was blood, but it really didn't look like that, so we went ahead with our plans to go to Salt Lake, figuring that if needed we could visit an Instacare there to get an antibiotic or whatever she might need.
As the week went on, Ellie didn't seem to get any better. There were moments when she seemed a little more energetic and I'd think, "okay, she's on the mend." And then 30 minutes later she was laying on the couch again with a tummyache and looking very pale.
Friday morning when she went to the bathroom there was obvious blood in her stool. In hindsight, I wish we'd packed up early and come home to see our family doctor. However, at the time my thought was to just keep monitoring her and again-if needed-we could go to a doc-in-the-box in Salt Lake.
Sunday morning, we woke up to get ready to return to Boise. When I gave Ellie a bath, I thought she not only looked pale, but was starting to look jaundiced. She was still having blood in her stool and now she was nauseous and throwing up periodically. We got home as quickly as we could and put her to bed hoping she would be better by morning.
Monday morning she was still just as sick so I got her in to our family doctor who examined her and ran some labs on her. They called us later that day to bring her to the hospital to be admitted to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit with a condition called hemolytic uremic syndrome. Her kidney function was compromised, platelets were low (17 when they should be above 130), and her hematocrit was 20 (should be above 36). We were told later that many kids who get this end up on dialysis--some with permanent kidney damage.
We were very fortunate. The pediatric nephrologist said he expected that she would have no permanent kidney damage and would completely recover. They gave her a unit of blood that first night and then just monitored her for the next four days, releasing her on Friday about 11pm.
It took about a month to get her hematocrit back up to where it should be, but now she's back to her old self and we are so grateful to have her healthy again!
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