LabER Day Weekend

We had a free week with Brock's vacation over Labor Day weekend and decided to take the opportunity to head up to Choteau to see Brock's side of the family.  Grandma Susan had just finished up her full course of chemotherapy so we were excited to spend some time with her while she had some of her energy back!  When the time came to leave Billings we were unsure about going because Isaac had a fever.  He had just had tubes put in his ears the week before and hadn't really been acting as if he was any better (still grouchy and not sleeping well).  So I took him in to the doc before we left to make sure we were good to go.  He couldn't see any infection in his ears so we decided just to go and watch his temperature.  About 30 minutes before we got to Great Falls (about 90 minutes from Choteau) we noticed Kaelyn was acting unusually tired and sad.  I jumped to the back of the van to check Isaac's temperature and he was back to normal, but Kaelyn was 103! That's pretty high for someone on chemotherapy.  In Billings, protocol is to take your child in to the Pediatric Oncology office if they have a temp over 101.  But, we weren't in Billings, and of course, by the time we saw she had a fever it was after 5 o'clock so I couldn't get a hold of Kaelyn's doctor or nurses (doesn't this stuff usually happen at the most inconvenient times?!).  Also, my reception was in and out as we drove.  Luckily I had the number of one of Kaelyn's nurses.  We stopped at Walmart in Great Falls to try to find some form of Tylenol we could get Kaelyn to take to get her fever down (she is very anti medicine!).  We had spent about 2 hours in Great Falls and still hadn't been able to reach anyone in Billings.  Her temp had come down to about 101.5 and we started to head back to the farm because we didn't know what else to do.

 Not feeling so good on the drive.

About 30 minutes into our hour drive out to the farm we finally heard back from a nurse who told us to take Kaelyn to the ER for fluids and and IV antibiotic for preventative measures.  So we headed back to Great Falls and got to the ER at about 10.  As per the oncology nurses orders over the phone, we were to go the nurses station immediately and ask for some numbing cream so they could access Kaelyn's port for the blood they would need to draw and for the IV.  Well, they insisted they needed to access blood from a site other than the port.  It ended up being a bit of a fight between us (well, Brock) and the charge nurse.  And we lost!  After 4 attempts at getting access to a vein, they finally succeeded, but Kaelyn was VERY unhappy.  We had been through getting IVs going before this so we knew it wasn't going to be good.  It was hard not to be upset about feeling like the nurses didn't listen to us, or to Kaelyn's doctor, but it was apparent that it was more important to comfort Kaelyn at the time than to be upset.  So, Kaelyn got her bag of saline and antibiotic and her temp was back to normal and we could finally head back to the farm and get some much needed sleep (it is now 3:00 a.m.).  An hour later Kaelyn wakes up puking and she's back to a fever of 102.  We headed back to the ER later that morning, after we got a little more sleep.  Low and behold when we got back to the ER the same charge nurse was working, but this time Brock put his foot down and said "you are using her port or we are leaving!"  Needless to say, they finally used her port :)

Her eye is a little droopy from the neuropathy side effects of her chemo.  The neuropathy will go away when she finished chemo, thankfully!

  

The wait in the ER on the second day was pretty interesting.  Most of the time, though, was just that, waiting, and getting lots of fluids.  We had a friendly ER neighbor.  I was trying to avoid eye contact with him because whenever I looked at him he would pull a funny face.  Now imagine, this guy is like 50.  I look over and he is sticking his tongue out at me while his thumbs are in his ears and he's wiggling his fingers!  Now that's entertainment!  Awkward entertainment though, because I didn't know what reaction to that was appropriate!  Anyway, her fever wasn't going down this time so they decided to admit her.  Long story shortened, we stayed until Sunday afternoon when her fever had finally gone down and stayed down.  So in all that time we were only able to spend a day with family in Choteau since we had to leave Monday.  We were grateful though that everything turned out OK.  The whole reason we had to stay in the hospital was just so she could be on constant fluids, have her fever monitored, and have antibiotics administered by IV every 12 hours just in case whatever was causing her fever was bacterial.

Always the best part of a hospital stay!

Thankfully we still had Labor Day to spend with family to make this trip worthwhile!  It was so nice to see everyone and for Kaelyn to get some time to play with cousins, aunts and uncles, and grandpa and grandmas!

Playing outside with family

Yep. She's a warrior!