First Hospital Stay

After Rigley was born, we stayed a day at the hospital and brought him home. A couple of days after we had been home I noticed that he was warm during the night. That morning he still felt hot so I took his temperature. It was over 102 degrees. (It may have even been 103. I can't remember the specific temp). My mom was in town and she told me to call and get an appointment to see the doctor as soon as I could. I did just that. We loaded up the kids in the car and got to the doctor. The nurse took his temperature and confirmed the temperature that I got.  I was still hoping that maybe I was wrong, even though I took his temperature at least 3 times at home.  When the doctor came in he said that he didn't like the way things looked and that he wanted to admit Rigley to the hospital.  I was blown away! I had no idea that was coming.  I looked at my mom and she said, "I was afraid of that."  The doctor left the room and I immediately started crying.  All I could think about was how fragile he was. He was only 3 days old.  I called Ryan and told him what was going on and he said that he was going to try to find someone at work who could come with him and give Rigley a blessing.

Rigley was admitted and they took him to do some tests. They brought him back and a nurse came to draw some blood. That was not fun. They had to poke him a few times and he had the bruises on his hands for weeks. Ryan got to the hospital with our friend Russell Boyle and they were able to give Rigley a blessing. As they were giving him the blessing I felt the comfort of the Spirit. My nerves were calmed (for the time) and I knew that he was going to heal. After the blessing my mom took Harper home and they took Rigley away again. When they brought him back it was one of the worst things I had ever seen (up to that point in his and my life).  He was very dehydrated so he needed an IV for fluids and medication. They put the IV in his head. Apparently it is common for babies to have IVs in their heads, but I had never seen it before and it was horrible.

The big lump under that hat is the IV.

After they took the IV out. He was exhausted. The bandage on his hand is from where they drew blood.

After the fluids got into his system his fever immediately started to go down. The doctor decided to give him two doses of general antibiotics in case of an infection. Even though the blood and urine cultures didn't grow one. The doctor discussed a few possibilities like and ear infection or meningitis. But once he received the fluids and antibiotics he got better so fast.  His fever stayed down and he was just acting better.  After the antibiotic doses, they let us go. If I remember right, he was admitted the morning of Friday July 2nd and he was discharged the evening of Saturday July 3rd.

Looking back there seems to be no connection between his first hospital stay and the second time he got sick and had to go to Little Rock. No bacteria grew from the blood and urine cultures that were drawn at the hospital.

*This was a tough one to write. I guess it's about to get a lot harder.