Keeping up with the Kioks: Doctors, Nurses, and Needles, Oh My!

Norah had her first hospital experience this past week. The Thursday before Mother's Day she developed a large bump that felt like a hard mass on her lower right jaw. It was first noticed at daycare, and Rick had a family med colleague check her out to see if it was something to be concerned about. They advised we watch it for a couple days since she didn't have any other symptoms. I got back from Cali on that Friday night and it seemed to get larger over the weekend. Norah was VERY irritable on Sunday (Mother's Day), and I had already scheduled an appt. with the pediatrician for Monday morning to have her checked out. The pediatrician admitted her to the hospital on Monday morning. We went straight from the pediatrician to the hospital and were checked in by 10 AM. The plan was to give her 24 hours of antibiotics to see if it improved. If it didn't then they would do imaging tests and go from there. The antibiotics were administered via IV which was placed in her right arm. However, it was very sensitive and Norah had to keep perfectly still or the machine would alarm and the nurse would have to restart it. It was quite annoying as it was going off every few minutes so it took awhile to get through the first dose of antibiotics. This also meant they had to administer the second dose in the middle of the night. Norah woke up for that, and ended up being up from midnight to 3 AM, and finally fell asleep with me in the pullout chair. She hated the hospital crib, and wouldn't even sit in it during the day, let me change her diaper on it, etc. I think she was just shaken up by everything around her. By Tuesday AM, the IV had deteriorated so they had to place a new one, this time in her left hand. They wanted to ensure they had a good IV for the CT scan, and this one did work much better than the first. So they did a CT scan on Tuesday midday, and it showed she likely had an abscess. Thus, they scheduled a procedure to have it drained. Luckily, we got lunch into her around 11:30 AM right before they told us she could have no food or water to prepare for the procedure. So, no food, no water, and attached to an IV pole until she went down to the OR around 8 PM. She was not a happy camper, but we kept her distracted pretty well and avoided a meltdown from not being able to eat or drink. We took her down to the OR around 8 PM. I carried her since she wouldn't sit in the hospital crib. Procedure went fine and we got to see her post-op in the recovery area for about 30 minutes before they sent us back up to the floor. I'm not sure if it was the anesthesia, but every time Norah would awake briefly she would panic and was very scared. We slept in the pullout chair together again. 7 AM Wednesday it was time for another round of IV antibiotics, but I noticed her IV was leaking. So, again the IV team was called to look at her line, and they had to remove it. I requested they evaluate if she needed the IV or could switch to oral antibiotics at this point, but 30 minutes later we heard back from the doc and the answer was No. They wanted to keep her on IV antibiotics until the cultures came back to confirm what bacteria it was. So, IV #3 was put in, this time in her left arm. We got the 7 AM dose in her, but when it was time for the 1 PM dose, the IV wasn't working again. Norah had been stuck about 5 or 6 times at this point. She was running out of areas to put an IV in. Her feet were not an option since she walks. Our options were: 1) Get someone from NICU to put in the IV since they are more skilled with smaller veins and pump fluids through the line constantly to help keep it open, 2) put in a central line, 3) switch to oral antibiotics. Of course, we wanted option #3, and we waited all afternoon for a decision. They finally agreed to switch her to oral antibiotics which also meant we could be discharged. Woohoo! So, we were able to leave Wednesday night instead of Thursday which was nice. We did a follow up with the ENT on Thursday at his office rather than the hospital. He pulled out the drain he had put in which left a bigger hole than I had expected and now we're waiting for it to close up and heal on its own. Daycare didn't want to have her there on Friday so she stayed home which was probably a good idea given the size of her wound and it was still draining a decent amount. We have an appt. on Monday at the Pediatrics office, and another follow up with the ENT on Tuesday morning. Whew! It was a very long three days in the hospital for us and Norah.

Now we are just trying to get back to Norah's normal routine. She isn't sleeping as well even at home, so I think it will take awhile to get back to the norm, but we're working on it. She's on oral antibiotics for another week or so, and her wound is draining less and healing nicely.

Norah did get several visitors while at the hospital from all of her daycare teachers. Norah goes to daycare at the hospital so the teachers stopped by on their lunch breaks or after they were done for the day. The teachers brought her balloons, toys, and a poster signed by all the kids and teachers. It was really sweet and Norah loved seeing them all.

Here are some pictures from the hospital. All the nurses loved her. We mostly read books or took walks around the floor so the staff all saw her often. My fitbit said I walked 16 miles in the three days we were there, and I didn't leave the hospital so you can imagine how much walking we did! Norah would walk holding my hand, ride in a wagon or car, or I would carry her around. Though Norah looks relatively happy in these pictures, it was a rough few days and not an experience she wishes to have again. :-)

Day 1 - Dressed in hospital garb, footies and all! Also, IV #1. This is the pullout chair we slept in.

Day 2 - We moved to a bigger room and got a high chair for eating. You can see how big her lower right jaw is in comparison to the left. Also, she has IV #2 here in this picture.