A sad day

I think a child falling sick is one of the worst nightmares a parent goes through, at least once in a life time. We are here right now. Megha wasn't herself at all since Monday last week (03 sept) and by Thursday she got progressively worse. She had a little fever but by Thursday (6th) she also picked up cold and cough. Before she went to bed on Thursday night, we gave her Tylenol; about 7 pm. I thought her fever would get in control with it, which it did. The problem was that the cold and cough were persistent and by 10:00 pm, she had severe cold. I gave her 1 ml cough medicine thinking I will repeat the dose at midnight if it doesn't come down. It didn't. So I have her another dose and she seemed a little better but not to the extent that i can sleep with her too. I had to keep comforting her every 5 minutes until Anand came in at 2 am so that I can get some sleep until 6 am.

The next day, we were taking Megha to Walt Disney World in Florida. This is supposed to be her first ever ride in an airplane and first ever travel outside of Canada. 

When Anand came in at 2 am, she seemed ok but I guess her condition was becoming bad to worst. When he fed her milk at 2:30 am, she had only 30 ml; even that she vomited. He woke me up immediately as he felt that her vomit was kettle-water-hot and she was burning up with high fever. He panicked and started yelling but I had to stop and think what to take to the emergency; when one is panicking, the other has to think. That way, Anand and I make perfect couple. When I panic, he becomes the voice of reason. 

Anyway, off we went to the emergency with Megha in toe at 2:45 am on Friday morning. There was no one waiting at the triage and I thought we would be attended to right away. I should have known by now, it doesn't work that way. 

A nurse monitored Megha's vitals and checked her temperature. Her vitals are good but her fever is still rising. She asked us so many questions and I answered as best as I could.

After that check up we were sent to the waiting room again. I was called in for some registration and I was asked all the questions again. Weird, the nurse before had answers for all the questions. Anyway.

After a long wait, meg was so tired that she fell asleep. As soon as she fell asleep we were called in to get her admitted and wait for the doctor. Oh oh! That's not good. After another hour, another nurse came in to check on Megha. She asked the same questions we were asked while check in AND registration. She checked the fever too and at that point it had risen to 39.1. At about 7 AM finally the doctor came in to check on her. They couldn't give anything to meg right away because they wanted to know the source of fever before they begin treatment. For the 4th time, we were asked all the questions again. The doctor also ordered the blood work, urine culture tests, ECG, chest X-Ray and ultra sound for kidneys and bladder. At this point, A called the airlines and cancelled our tickets to Orlando, US.

The first nurse came in and "tried" to take Meg's blood. All along she was commenting about how chubby her hands are. She poked Megha 3 times (twice on each hand and once on wrist) and couldn't find the vein. Of course Megha was screaming in pain and it took everything in me not to cry out loud like her. She gave up after 3 tries and left Megha to "rest" for a bit. After 30 minutes she came back again with another nurse to try again. They held her tight and asked Anand to comfort her while I held her legs to prevent her from kicking the nurses. They tried the leg this time but still no luck. Megha continued crying. I kept counting backwards from 40. 40, 39, 38, 37....2, 1, 0. I opened my eyes and they still didn't finish with Megha. Trust me, with your baby crying so much, 40 seconds is a very long time. I started again, only this time it's 60, 59, 58...they poked her in 5 different places this time with not much of success to show. We were left to "rest" again.

We were then asked to hold Megha again. They wanted to put a catheter on to get urine. Baby started crying. I felt so bad for her. She was terrified with all the poking, hurting  going on with her. We were doing as best as we could to comfort her but honestly speaking, we ourselves needed some comfort. 

Around 11 am, Anand took Megha to the hospitals Tim Hortons (coffee place). I so wanted to talk to my mom and sister and share our plight. Mom was almost crying when she heard this. Anyway...

Anand was back in 10 minutes with Megha and she seemed to settle down a bit. I slept beside her on her bed and Anand dozed off too for 30 minutes. We all needed that. 

Soon after our 30 minute nap, we were called in for the x-ray. The technician explained that it's a pain-free thing but since we are dealing with a baby, the chest x-ray is different to watch. Megha was stripped down to her diaper and the little seat kinda thing on which she was kept was horrible to look at. It looked like she was like a little piglet being handled by ears. It was heart wrenching. The technician was very swift and the whole thing would have lasted maybe about a minute. One of the longest minutes In my life.  

We were sent back to wait for results and get the ultra sound. By then Meg must have cried so much that she was close to the stage of passing out. Ultra sound done but by the time we returned to our room the nurse was waiting to get the blood again!! My heart sank. It's like Megha is not being given any room to recover from one trauma and then pushed to another. Thankfully this time the nurse wasn't going to try the veins; she gave up. She poked Megu's tiny little thumb and slowly started taking one blood drop at a time. After she is done with one vial, she asked me to hold that vial and keep mixing it. Really? She wanted me to hold our daughters blood and mix it; I wasn't even prepared to look so much of it and suddenly I was being given a task of making sure that I mix it and hold it upright. I digress. After a certain point, no amount of counting works. We simply have to face the facts, as hard as it might be for parents.

By then the duty doctor who was attending Megha was off-shift and she said she was going to talk to another doctor and hand over Megha to him. It was about 1 pm then. All which was left was to wait for the results. Even when we put Megha on the bed to change her diaper, she started wailing: poor baby, she thought we were going to poke her again with the needle. Of course, we would too if we were held down and be poked for 9 times. 

The results were in. She has infection; I am not going to go into details but she has infection. She was prescribed antibiotics and we were given an appointment with the pediatrician the next morning. After more than 12 hours of intense pain, Megha, Anand and I headed home. All three of us were dead tired. Our friends in Milton were so nice, they brought us food so that  we don't have to cook. We didn't leave Megha alone even for a second for the next few days. Anand or I used to lie down beside her from 7 pm onwards. 

She is getting better but I still get nightmares that Megha is being troubled by nurses on and off. I think it will be a very long before I close my eyes and not see those flash scenes from the hospital. 

The weekend she was supposed to be in the Walt Disney Word, enjoying, she spent at the hospitals and waiting rooms. A sad day indeed.