Flashback

At time last year we were waiting for count recovery. You might remember on April 22nd last year Chelsea spiked a fever during her nap, out of nowhere. I took her up to the Children’s hospital where they took one look at her and said, “she’s fine!” They took blood cultures – just in case, then sent us on our way. No antibiotics, no explanation for her fever. Oh, and to top it off her counts had FULLY recovered, ten fold! They were 3 times the normal, which was unheard of for Chelsea since she had started treatment. Weird? I’ll say. I asked for antibiotics, please … I had heard of kids getting one high dose of antibiotics to tide them over until the cultures came back. I KNEW something was wrong.

Nope. She’s fine. If she was sick, she wouldn’t be playing.

Looks can be deceiving.

Ten hours later, at midnight, (on Logan’s birthday nonetheless) I got a call from the attending doctor on call. At this point I knew it was no good to get calls from doctors, and I knew it had to be doubly bad that she was calling in the middle of the night.

Multiple bugs were growing in Chelsea’s Hickman (her tubies). Basically, she was septic. Bugs don’t normally grow in blood cultures that fast. She was one sick little girl and they weren’t taking no for an answer. I packed a bag, loaded her up and we drove over an hour to the hospital for a direct admit where they started antibiotics immediately. The next day on rounds, the attending and other doctors stood in awe at this little girl who was so very sick. She stood in her crib, peeking through the bars, waving, babbling at the crowd, managing to get a smile out of the most serious of medical professionals. I think they learned something that day.

Looks had deceived them. This mama knew what she was talking about. I think from there on out they pretty much knew, and if I had one of those ‘feelings’ again, they checked it out. I wasn't angry about what happened, just glad they found the problem and recognized that Chelsea wasn't "typical" and didn't present "typically".

Last month when Chelsea had a fever and petechiae and we took her to the ER to be checked out, the ER doc called our oncologist. He returned to our room and told us her oncologist had very nice things to say about us. We were flattered.

Some say time heals all wounds. These wounds aren’t healing quite yet. She was so terribly sick, and the memories still scare me. I’m not sure I want to stop remembering. When I stop remembering, I may start taking life for granted.