with the good comes the bad

Last week ,Frank and I had to rush Lily to the emergency room. She had an abscess on her bottom which needed to be drained. Let me back up... last Tuesday night I took Lily to the Acute Kids Care for an abscess on her bottom. The Pediatric Doctor, also named "Lily", lanced the abscess (which was horribly painful for my Lily) and wrote a prescription for an antibiotic. We came home with Lily running a 102 temp. The next day we followed up with our Pediatrician. She drained it some more and told us to continue draining, warm compresses, and warm sudsy baths, but if Lily continued to run a fever bring her back the next day. Guess what? Lily was still running a fever and the infection was spreading. Every time I drained the abscess a ton of infection came out and the whole process was traumatizing for Lily and I both. So we went back to our Doctor and she sent us straight to Dallas Children's Hospital. We checked in to the ER and waited for the Pediatric Surgeon to see us. I couldn't feed Lily anything to drink or eat because there was a possibility she was going to have surgery later in the evening. During the waiting time in the ER we had three different diagnosis, plans/opinions. Finally, when we saw our Pediatric Surgeon he said, "Surgery and IV antibiotics, you should go home in a couple of days"
Wow!!! Here we are in the ER, Frank and I trying to wrap our heads around our baby, "going to sleep"? We just couldn't believe it.
The nurses came in to install Lily's IV. TRAUMATIC!!! I remind you Lily has nothing to eat or drink. She was dehydrated and the nurses took three tries before getting it right. So here is our sweet baby lying on the bed, hands & body wrapped in a tight blanket so she can't move around, all the while screaming because she is in pain and flat pissed. Again....TRAUMATIC!!!
Surgery went perfectly fine. Literally it took 5 minutes. The recovery process was longer than the surgery. When Lily woke up she asked for her shoes and juice. We gladly accommodated her! Our nurse brought in a DVD player with Thomas the Train DVDs and in no time at all Lily was up dancing to the theme music. Frank and I were very relieved! Lily and I were escorted to our room and were pretty much in quarantine.
Aunt Lisa was so nice to bring us dinner on Thursday & Friday night and Frank spent most of the Saturday with us at the hospital. Miss Morgan was at home being taken care of by Frank's mom and my mom which came in from OK to help out. I knew Morgan was in great hands so that was one thing for me NOT to worry about.
Lily had a dose of IV antibiotic every 6 hours and Tylenol & Motrin when needed. I haven't mentioned during surgery Lily was given an incision with two draining tubes coming out of her bottom. The dirty diaper thing was very difficult to deal with and I will spare you any details.
We spent Thursday, Friday, Saturday night in the hospital. I will always remember room 670, yellow & blue painted walls, with a strange, upside down, painted hot air balloon on one of the ceiling tiles. Weird? The nurses were very sweet to Lily. They brought her stickers, bubbles, and a little stuffed frog. The "child life" services, also, brought Lily toys, bubbles, DVDs, stickers, crayons & coloring books to occupy her time. What a relief, because remember we came to the ER with nothing but the clothes on our back and a diaper bag.
On Sunday, the Surgeon came in, took Lily's drainage tubes out, gave me directions for future cleaning of the wound, and gave us our walking papers!!!
We came home to tell Grandma Suzy, "Thank you, I love you, and Bye, bye!"
Then later that evening Frank's family came over for dinner. I know it sounds crazy having people over just after getting home from the hospital, but the company took our mind off of all the hospital stuff. We enjoyed steak, egg plant rattitoue (sp?), salad, and Sangria.
As of today you would never know Lily had been in the hospital for 4 days. Except for her name bracelet which is on her ankle. She will not let me get close to it to cut it off. It's like it's her battle scar. I might have to sneak in her room and cut it off if she doesn't give in shortly! But other than that you would never guess she was in the hospital. She is back to being my sweet, spicy, caring, independent, curious, loving, active, smart little girl!