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Day 245-- Part three in the continuing saga of the sick baby. Did I clone out a huge amount of personal information? Yes, I did.

Day three of Annika's fever dawned, and while the fever was better, the rash was worse. It was getting pretty gross, and Annika still didn't have one single symptom of a cold as diagnosed by the ER doctor, so we decided it was time to go back to the doctor. We were on vacation, a good three hours from our doctor's office, so our choices were the emergency room at the hospital (again) or the urgent care clinic. We opted for the urgent care clinic, because it sure didn't look like an emergency and we thought it would be a simple follow up visit.

My mom took Emily to Vacation Bible School at my in-laws' church while my husband and I took Annika to the doctor. After a grueling two hours, the doctor finally checked her out and reported back to us.

Annika had two ear infections and a throat infection that looked like strep throat. The initial strep test came back negative, but he would send it off to the lab to grow cultures and double check. She also had a diaper rash/ yeast infection and eczema, both of which opened up her skin to another infection, which was either strep or staph. If it was a staph infection, it was most likely MRSA, because that's what has been going around lately. MRSA is drug-resistant and won't respond to traditional antibiotics, so it is treated with sulfa drugs. This might not be a problem, except a baby whose daddy is allergic to sulfa (like my husband) has a good chance of sharing that allergy. Her hands and feet were also covered in blisters from coxsackie virus (hand foot mouth disease) which is highly contagious but not serious and is generally not treated.

The poor doctor was in over his head, and pointed out that he really works at a big first aid station and isn't equipped to deal with situations like this.

He decided to start antibiotics for the ear infections and hope that it would also wipe out the strep throat (if that's what it was) and the strep rash (if that's what it was) and then see what happened.

As we were sitting around waiting for the prescription and feeling overwhelmed, we got a call saying we needed to take Emily home because she was sick.

That's right! We're not done with this saga yet!

We got Annika's medicine (long and unpleasant trip to the pharmacy) while my mom got Emily. We met up at my parents' house, gave Emily a popsicle to help with the sore throat and fever that had appeared out of nowhere, and regrouped. My mom and husband stayed with the sick baby, and I took her sick sister back to the clinic. I assumed that since the doctor had just seen her sister, this would be a pretty straight-forward visit to get another bottle of antibiotics.

HA! After an hour and fifteen minutes of waiting with a miserable child, I finally convinced the receptionist/nurse to give Emily some Motrin for her fever. A few minutes later, she threw up all over the floor, the chair, her shoes, and our legs. The receptionist was really nice about helping to get us cleaned up and getting a bag to catch the rest of the barf, but then she told us that the doctor wanted us to go to the emergency room at the hospital instead of continuing to wait there. Yes, an hour and a half of waiting, and all we had to show for it was a paper bag containing vomit-soaked sandals. Sigh.

So I heaved my daughter, who is much heavier than her baby sister but too sick and barefoot to walk, out to the car and then into the hospital. Fortunately, the ER wasn't nearly as busy as it was two days ago, so we only had to wait about half an hour.

Emily's strep test also came back negative, but the doctor said she smelled like strep and agreed that she probably had what her sister had. Her legs, hands, and feet were also starting to get bumpy. Emily was given anti-nausea medicine. We waited 20 minutes for that to kick in. Then she was given Motrin again for the fever. Then we waited for her prescription and check out.

At this point, I had spent five or six hours at various medical facilities and knew I had another pharmacy trip before me, and that it would be difficult because I neglected to bring the proper insurance information on vacation with me. I hadn't eaten anything, so we stopped for a 4:00 lunch on the way to the pharmacy. By the time we got home, it was time for dinner, medicine all around, and bedtime.

Shoot me now.

This is how it goes all day...And although her spirit is awesome I know she's in pain..
She still feels really warm, so I hope the medicine will work quickly...