the little girl that could

Friday.

This is Sunday, but what I am about to share was my day,  Friday!

It was a typical day here in sunny the month of May, in Florida, RAINY.  

Lots of rain.

I got home, feeling tired from the night before because Butterfly woke up at least five times Thursday night.  In which at one point I could tell she was either running a fever, or she was feeling warm from her fleece pj's daddy put her in.  I turned the fan on for her in her room, giving her a little fresh air.  After the three o'clock rocking, I put her back to bed and she made it through the rest of the night.  

Six AM rolls around (way too fast) and we are up and getting daddy out the door for work, and bubba dressed and ready for school.  

Around 8:15 AM, Butterfly and I are home from dropping bubba off a school, and we begin our usual morning schedule of making the beds, feeding the cats and then making breakfast for ourselves. Well, I make the breakfast, Morgan sits in her chair and gives me her chatter box of baby gibberish.  She loves to talk. 

After breakfast she started acting really fussy and clinging on me.  I could tell she wasn't feeling 100%, but wasn't sure if she was just tired from waking up so much last night, teething and or still exhausted from missing her second nap the day before, due to being at bubba's baseball game. 

I had a friend and her son coming up for a playdate, so I thought I would try and get Morgan down a little early for her nap, so she could sleep a bit later if she needed.  While I did get her down for her nap, she woke up and then I would put her down again.  I could tell she wasn't feeling that well, and was hesitant to call off the playdate. We had already pushed it back a few times I felt bad, and I was hoping that maybe after a good solid nap she would be her happier self.  

After putting her down for her nap, it all then seemed to have spiraled out of control.

I got a call from the school counselor.  She had just spoken with Hunter about his behavior that morning at school.  Hunter is having some issues with some boys at his school over the last several weeks, and its gotten to the point where Hunter feels really hurt over things and is starting to act out towards them, as they have towards him.  Anyways, another post, later on.

I then received a call from the hospital that I am photographing for, saying how pleased the families where with the photos I photographed last week.  They said baby boy was hanging in there still.  Then I was asked if I could photograph another little girl of only 22 months who had cancer when she was 3 months old, and now relapsed with having it again. Only to now have an aggressive case of cancer this time, that she cant be treated.  She was taken home on hospice care.  I am going to photograph her with her family this week, and I can't wait to give her a big hug and kiss.  Can you imagine?  It breaks my heart into many pieces. 

While I am still very new to photography, and learning as I go.  A couple of photographer friends of mine have been SO helpful.  One girl I went to high school with. You can go HERE to check our Allison's blog and photos of her adorable little girl and photography.  Thanks Allison.

Then my other good friend David Vance, whom I have mentioned on here before, and as well posted some of the recent photos he photographed of me.  He is actually going to go with me to photograph this little girl and her family this week. Giving me pointers and advice with the camera.  I feel a huge relief just having him there by my side, because I want to give these families the best photos I possibly can.  

While Allison is encourages me to step out of my comfort zone of AV mode, and start trying to use my Manual mode.  I thought I would go outside while Butterfly was sleeping and play with my camera. Explore this manual mode stuff.

While I was clicking away, shooting at two beautiful furry buddies of mine (a.k.a. my cats). When all of the sudden I hear the strangest noise on Morgan's monitor.  It didn't sound right so I went right away to check on her.  Only to see her sitting there looking terrified, gasping for air and beat read and sweating as if she was in a sauna, and or had been screaming and crying for a long time.  Which obviously wasn't possible, since I was near her monitor the whole time and would have heard her.

I picked her up and I could tell something was wrong with her.  She was grunting really fast and hard, as if she couldn't breath. So I quickly start talking to her and trying to get her to look at me.  Took her outside to see the rain, thinking it would calm her down and distract her, but it didn't.  Something wasn't right. I could feel her heart beating through her clothes, just by holding her.  

I didn't even take the time to change out of my pj's or hers. I got her blanket, diaper bag and my purse and rushed out of the door.  I took her down the street to our pediatricians office, got her out of the car, put the blanket over her head to keep her dry from the rain, to be greeted with a locked door.  The office was closed for lunch. 

By this time, Morgan is still crying and grunting for air, that I am starting to get upset and nervous.  

I then take her across the street to this little walk-in urgent medical care center.  Having people in the lobby waiting, the receptionist sees Morgan and her age, and immediately rush us in.  They take her temp and its 104.3 and her heart rate was really high.  They try to entertain her to calm her down and tell me they called a paramedic to come and pick us up to take her to the hospital for better urgent care.

{I hate seeing those tears}

It really seemed like a short few minutes for the medics to arrive. The next thing I know is that I am being asked to sit on the stretcher, while they strap my waist and legs down, and then hold Morgan on top of me. They are attempting to attach things to Morgan's toe, so they can get vital readings, but she just wasn't having it, so they left her alone in order to not cause her further stress.  

{Being so brave}

The medic guy continues to tell me that what their concern is at the moment is her grunting for air, with high fever and high heart rate, that babies can have seizures with this combo.  

Okay.  Not what I needed to hear.  This is much more serious than I thought it to be or I guess wanted it to be.

{Trying to keep her occupied}

We arrive at the hospital, and Morgan surprisingly was pretty chilled on the ride there, but wasn't herself.  She was distracted with all the excitement but at the same time still pretty loopy (I can't find a better word to describe her). It was pouring when we got out there.  I hate the the attention when being pushed around on the stretcher, so I just kept my face down on Morgan in order to not notice all the eyes looking upon us, to see what was our emergency.  

If I was asked to walk in the same door they took us in at the ER entrance and walk back to the room they put us in when arrived. I wouldn't be able to find it, that is how little I lifted my eyes up to look around me.  I was a bit nervous.  I am pretty calm when it comes to stuff like that, but I think when I was told we were being transported to the ER, I was thrown off a bit. 

Wasn't expecting that at all.

As soon as we arrive, there are several people in the room, attaching heart monitors on her, attaching vital reading machines to her toes.  Swabbing both her nostrils with these tiny swab sticks.  Sticking ear the otoscope in both her ears.  Holding her tongue down with a tongue blade or stick to view her mouth.  She really gets upset when they look in her ears and place the cold stethoscope on her back and chest to list to her heart and lungs. 

{She hated that her her toe}

{And kept trying to get it off} Successful about ten times!

At this time, the heart monitor says that her heart rate is in the high 190-200's, when it should be in the 160-170 range.  Her temperature was still extremely high also, so they made her take off all her clothes, and put a thermometer in her bottom.  That was not fun.

The want to do more test on her, but try to get her to calm back down for a minute so her heart rate wouldn't continue to rise.  Then as if that wasn't enough, they come in and check her blood pressure, they put a catheter in her vagina to collect urine.  They poked her hand to collect blood.  Then transported us to another room for chest x-rays. 

{She is so innocent, has no clue what all this is for}

All the while she is still making this grunting sound.  Her lungs sound fine.  Everything was looking okay, other than the spiked fever and high heart rate.  So, they weighed her in before giving her some Motrin, hoping that will kick in and bring her temp down while the wait the results of all the test.  

{Thank goodness for Mr. Teddy}

Only five LONG hours later.  Her fever did come down, but not gone.  She did calm down and started to act a little happier.  She was starting to get very mobile in the bed, constantly unhooking anything that was attached to her.  Realizing she must be starving I was able to get some gram crackers and juice for her, and she was ripping it out of my hand like a monkey in a zoo cage.  Taking it quickly, jamming it in her mouth and crawling off and rolling in the bed.  

{My little monkey in the zoo, eating her gram crackers - she was starving}

Friends were calling to check in.  My friend that was coming over for the playdate, I sent her to Lisa's house.  Mark was running around, went to get our things and diaper bag out of my car left at the urgent care center, while also picking me up something to eat and Morgan a change of clothes. One of our pastor friends, Scott came by to check on us.  That was very kind of him and a sweet little surprise. The medic guy came and gave her a little pink teddy bear.  I know, sweet right?

Finally, just when I finally got her down to sleep, the doctor comes in to tell us that everything is fine, but that her counts show she is a virus (or as they call it Viral Syndrome).  Said there wasn't anything they could do for her, but that was the good and bad news.  Good news there doesn't seem to be anything serious going on.  Okay, I will take that.  Bad new, it appears to be viral, but nothing to do for it but wait it out. 

{Finally, asleep!}

They tried to not wake her, but um, who wouldn't wake up when having something poked in your bottom?  They were taking her temperature one last time and taking the IV out of her hand, so that we could be release.  Give us a sheet telling us what to expect or look for in the Viral Syndrome, collected a $200 co-pay and sent us on our way.  Telling us that she will probably run fever for a couple more days, to keep an eye out and it should go away.  

{Getting her heart rate checked before leaving}

{Perfect!}

Then concluded to tell me that her breathing actions, (i.e. grunting for air sounds) are what babies of small ages with high fevers and heart racing can tend to grunt for air, because unlike adults, the don't know how to just make themselves take in deep inhales to get in that positive air to calm the heart down.  Instead they take short grunts of air.  Interesting, but makes sense.

{Reading up on this Viral Syndrome}

By the time we were leaving, she did give the doctor a thumbs up and a smile.  

What a tuff little girl she is.  

The little girl that could.....

That could smile after being poked, touched, pricked and basically messed with in every single part of her body, and still trust enough to give you a smile and a thumbs up on the way out. 

A long night of high fever, a cool bath, many rectal temperature readings.  Let's just say, mommy is exhausted.  Up a few times with her waking up and fussy, even screaming in that traumatized and terrified way.  For anything that touched her foot when unexpected, she feared it was the doctors grabbing her foot again. She would jerk her head up and scream bloody murder.  Take me about 15 minutes to calm her down and get her back to sleep. 

Yesterday, still ran fever most of the day, and she was crabby.  Took a long nap.  Mommy still up several times in the night checking on her.  When she finally broke fever last night, in the early morning hours.  She was soaking wet when I went in to check on her, but she slept through the night and woke up a much happier baby today.  

We even went to Chili's for dinner, and it felt almost as if we were released from quarantine lock down of our home over the last 48 hours.  

Thank you to all of you that have called or sent text checking in on Butterfly.  After a very intense filled day Friday. I was so tired of repeating what had taken place, that I figured I would post the details here, with some photos.  

In truth, I wasn't even going to take pictures.  I thought it would seem a bit weird taking pictures in the ER.  However, I was trying to find whatever I could to entertain/distract Morgan, for the nurses and when taking her picture and then letting her see it. She really enjoyed that, so I kept snapping away.  Not the greatest pictures obviously, but it gives you an idea of what this little girl went through on Friday.  And of course Teddy wouldn't have missed it for anything.  

I love this girl SO SO SO much. This is MY happy baby girl today.  

By the way please keep these babies in prayer.

Baby A - newborn dying of a heart defect.

Baby B - healing from open heart surgery.

Baby C - 22 months old, home on hospice with round two of cancer.  SO heartbreaking. 

Baby Bentley - smooth recovery form her heart surgery.

Baby April Rose - her due date has come and gone now, just waiting for her arrival.  

Baby Stellan - having STV bouts.

My Butterfly - for being so brave, strong and healthy.