Today was a pretty grueling day

Today was a pretty grueling day. We drove to Olathe to see the PA at Dr. Brooks office because Anne had been throwing up during the night again and woke up with another high fever and chills - her overall condition concerned us greatly.

The PA told us her ear infection was more-or-less gone so she must have something else going on and did not rule out the possibility of Lyme Disease from her tick bite a few weeks ago. He started her on a different antibiotic that would also tackle Lyme if that was the problem and he said we could have labs drawn in a few days if things didn't improve.

She had a normal temp at the Doctor's office this morning but by the time we were heading to Grandpa's farm she was hot again and still wouldn't eat and she had thrown up. When we got to the farm, her temperature was 104.3 so Tim called Dr. Brooks who said to bring her in for labs. We went back to Olathe to pick up the prescription at Dr. Brooks Office then to a Lab One where they had a pediatric phlobotomist. When we inquired as to what that meant exactly, we were told "poking kids is our specialty".

Well, unfortunately today was training day for the lady who first tried to draw Anne's blood. She poked the right arm then when she didn't hit the vein, she started moving the needle back and forth about an inch and a half - all the while Anne is, if not screaming, certainly crying quite loudly. After a minute of that (poor Anne!) she gave up and they called in "Paul the professional" (our name for him). He tried the left arm and found the vein immediately. Tim and I just hated ourselves for not asking for someone who was good or at least stopping the lady who was being trained.

Well, Anne was a trooper and in the end, I think she was more traumatized by having to wear a band-aid out to the car than she was by the "professionally" administered gouging. By supper-time at Grandma's (who Grandma?! - regular Grandma) house, her temp was around 102 and she said she was pretty hungry. She ended up eating probably an ounce of steak and quite a bit of a potato. That is more than she's eaten in the past 3-4 days.

Her motto had become, "I'll save it for later" when we would ask her if she was hungry. We were relieved to see her eat and she was pretty chipper too. Dr. Brooks called at 9:00 tonight with the lab results. Her white blood cell count was 18,000 (for children he said it is usually about 10,000 - 12,000); high, but not surprisingly so, basically saying she has an infection. The other thing that was high was sedimentation which indicates inflammation (it was 60). So basically we still don't know what she has, but it sounds like it's a viral infection and Dr. Brooks said he expects her fever to spike again tonight and then hopefully the antibiotic will work and we'll start to see improvement. I guess the blood tests didn't turn up a definite BAD thing so at least we know that. Dr. Brooks was glad to hear she'd eaten some dinner.