Halloween in the Hospital

We spent Halloween night (and the two days that followed) in the hospital. It was a long couple of days, but we survived and Fisher is doing great. Because Jackson was under 10 years old and Fisher was considered in "isolation", Jackson wasn't allowed to visit at all. Which meant that while Tyler was at school all day and I was in the hospital with Fisher, Jackson had to bounce around from neighbor to neighbor for two days. We really appreciated all the support and help we received with babysitting, dinners, and prayers. We have amazing friends.

(All of the pictures in this post are after we got home from the hospital. We took a few pictures in the hospital, but they are sad and they're all on my phone and I can't figure out how to get them onto the computer.)

The night we brought Fisher home. Everyone was so excited to be together as a family again.

Around 3pm on Halloween we were working on dinner and preparing for an evening of intramural football and trick-or-treating. Fisher woke up from his afternoon nap crying, which is weird because he usually wakes up pretty happy. I tried to feed him and he wouldn't eat. He just kept crying. He felt a little warm but had been fine earlier in the day. I decided to take his temperature. It was 100.5. Our doctor told us 100.4 was the cut off for a newborn needing to see the doctor. He calmed down and ate a little so I was really hesitant to call the doctor's office because I didn't want to have to go in for nothing. After an hour we checked his temp again and it was 100.7. I decided to call since the office would be closing for the day soon and I wanted to know what to do if his temp continued going up. The nurse instructed us to take him to the hospital ER immediately and that she would let them know we were coming. I might be a terrible mom, but I kind of questioned this a bit and told the nurse he seemed like he was fine. She double-checked with the attending doctor and said that because he was only 6 weeks, he needed to go right to the hospital.

Fisher was so excited to be back home. I think he was mostly happy to be back in comfy clothing. He wasn't a fan of wearing nothing but a diaper and a big sock on his arm to cover up the IV.

Tyler offered to take him. He knows more about medical stuff, so I thought that sounded like a good idea. I sent Fisher and Daddy off with a bottle and started getting Jackson ready for trick-or-treating. Tyler called an hour later saying they were doing a spinal tap and Fisher would likely need to stay overnight. Jackson went to a neighbor's house and I headed to the hospital. The spinal tap was sad to watch, but Fisher did amazing. He actually fell asleep during it. The initial results came back a few hours later and the protein levels were abnormally high, so they said he would need to stay for 2 days on an IV with antibiotics and anti-viral medications.

Jackson was pretty excited to have his brother home.

 His fever eventually got as high as 102.3. So the next two days were filled with lots of tests, medication, even a cranial ultrasound, and lots of waiting for the cultures from the spinal tap. It was a long couple of days but the staff was amazing and Fisher was very well cared for. I stayed with him the whole time except for a few hours here and there when Tyler relieved me and I went home for a break with Jackson.

This is the beautiful blanket that Fisher was given when we were admitted. They have volunteers that make these blankets for all the babies who come to the hospital.

 Finally, on Wednesday night around 9pm as we were settling in for another long night, our nurse announced with a big grin, "Do you want to go home tonight?" He told me that all the tests were negative and since Fisher was eating well and his fever was gone, we could go home and just watch him closely there. I was thrilled. I called Tyler, who picked us up about 5 minutes later since we live right down the street from the Children's Hospital.

More of the beautiful blanket

So we survived and Fisher is fine. It was just a random fever and he's been doing great ever since. We are grateful to the staff at Children's Hospital who took such good care of us and to all of our friends that helped us out so much.