Pray for Lolly

Our little Lolly is very, very sick tonight.  She is at the hospital in Burley (with Ben), and I am home, feeling so sad that I'm not there with her.  :(  I am exhausted (emotionally and physically), but how is a mother to sleep when her (big) baby girl is very sick and far away? 

On Friday night, Lolly started to get diarrhea, and on Saturday morning, we noticed she had thrown up during the night (she never woke up crying).  She had diarrhea and threw up everything on Saturday.  Within two seconds of drinking anything, it came right back up.  Her tummy hurt and she was miserable.  

She wanted to be carried around the WHOLE day, and she only wanted me.  Ben took the big boys over to his parents' house in the afternoon to watch the BYU game, and I stayed at home with the three littles.  I sat on the couch and carried Lolly the entire afternoon- she did not want to be put down.  I had mountains of laundry (did I mention that the only thing she wanted to drink was grape juice?- and she threw up a million times during the day...poor, poor Lolly).  She let me put her in the high chair for a few minutes, and she fell asleep sitting up (that was when I knew she was very sick).     

This morning, Ben took all the boys to church, and I stayed home with the girls.  Just before they left, Tyler was getting Lolly undressed for her tub (she'd thrown up all over herself), and she fell asleep on the floor.  Since she really hadn't slept much at all yesterday or last night, I left her to sleep while I bathed Sammi.

A little while later, Lolly woke up, in pain.  I bathed her then dressed her, and could tell she didn't feel good, but I also knew something wasn't quite right.  Her eyes looked really dull- like she was only halfway there, and I knew she had to be getting dehydrated.

I was going to google some info to decided if she needed to go to the hospital, but decided to just call the ER to talk to a real person.  In the hundreds of phonecalls I've made to the ER over time, I've learned that they rarely, if ever, will tell you if you need to bring your child in or not (a liability issue, I'm sure).  But I really needed some guidance.  I didn't want to overreact (did I mention that Trey went to the E.R. TWICE in one day two weeks ago- for the same thing...?, which was necessary for him, but I don't really want to overuse the ER).  I really needed someone to tell me what to do.

Just before I called, I said  litlte prayer in my head, "Please let Michelle be there and answer the phone."  Michelle is our good friend.  She, and her husband, Garth (who is now our bishop), came to visit us the night we lost Sasha.  We were brand new to the area, and hardly knew anyone.  They had lost a baby several years earlier, and came to offer their support.  They have become very dear friends to us, and Michelle has taken care of Trey countless times in the E.R.  I knew that if Michelle answered the phone, she would tell me what to do.

So I dialed the number, and heard, "Cassia Regional Emergency Room- This is Michelle."  Michelle told me to bring Lolly in.  So I texted her husband (the bishop- remember)- he found Ben and sent him home.  As Ben was leaving church with the boys, my friend, Melanie, heard what was going on.  She told Ben that this morning, she was preparing Sunday dinner and felt like she needed to make an extra pan of enchiladas, although, at the time, she didn't know who they were supposed to be for.  She told Ben to swing by her house and pick them up.

{I have no doubt in my mind that Heavenly Father knows me.  He hears my prayers (even tiny ones in my heart before making a phone call) and knows what is going on in my life.  And in yours.  And He cares.  He really, really does.}

When Trey goes to the hospital, I'm always the one that stays home to take care of everyone else.  I almost always have a nursing baby, and it makes more sense for us to have me stay home (although it truly breaks my heart to not be the one there).  This time, with Lolly, I really felt like I needed to be there with her.  We took the kids over to Ben's parents' house.  They (his parents) are out-of-town (an Alaskan cruise!), but Ben's brother, Brandon, his wife, Lindsay, and aunt Joelle were all there, and took the kids (including Sammi) so Ben and I could both be with Lolly.

Lolly was very dehydrated.  They put an IV in, and the doctor made a wise decision to just go ahead and draw some blood just to check things out.  When the blood results came back, there were many things that were weird- her blood sugar was high, her white blood count was high, her blood platelets were low, etc.  She did test positive for Strep, but she also seemed to have the stomach flu, as well as a strange rash on her hands and feet (which they initially thought might be hand, foot and mouth disease (is that what it's called?- it's getting late).  The doctor was concerned about and confused by her lab results.  He said they were investigating several possible problems- including diabetes and sepsis.  That really threw me off guard- I know about sepsis.  Several years ago, Trey had Bacteremia (which is less severe than Sepsis), and was sicker that I have ever seen him.  We. Were. Scared.

They ran another blood test, and since she was rehydrated, her blood sugar came down, and they are no longer concerned about diabetes, but are still trying to determine if she has sepsis.

Lolly has been given lots of IV fluids, Tylenol (to help here fever come down), meds to help with nausea (forgot the name...too late at night), and Morphine (to help calm her down and lessen her pain).  They've had to do multiple blood draws and stool and urine samples, and, although I've sat by a hospital bedside hundreds of times before during all sorts of painful procedures, it never gets easier.  And I think it might be ever harder to watch a tiny little girl go through it all. 

After the nurse put in her IV, she strapped a little board around it to keep it safe from tiny 2-year-old hands that might be tempted to pull it out.  Lolly HATED it- not really because it hurt, but because she had NO idea why it was there, and why we wouldn't take it off.  She kept yelling, "Yucky!  Yucky!" when she saw it.  We thought it was so cute- with her limited vocabulary, it was the best word she could think of to describe her feelings for her IV.

Today was really sad for me.  And tonight, I'm even more sad, being far away from her.  :(

I left once during the day to go to my in-laws to feed Sammi.  Then I went back to the hospital for a few hours before Sammi was hungry again.  I left tonight after she was settled into her hospital room.  She was asleep- calmed and resting, thanks to the Morphine.  She is so, so tired, and does come in and out of sleep, but she doesn't feel good.  She does look tons better than when we first took her to the ER.  She is [finally] able to hold some oral fluids down, and kept guzzling her Powerade (she thinks she's too big for her sippy cup and wanted to drink it with a straw).

I could not get over how pretty she looked, lying in her bed.  She's such a pretty little princess.  We are so worried about her.  I just called her nurse to check on her before I go to bed.  The nurse said that while Lolly is stable and is improving, she would prefer to have her at Primary Children's (not a very comforting thought...since she's not a Primary's).  I do feel like she is doing better (or I wouldn't have left for the night).

Would you please say a prayer for our little Lolly?

And to end on a happy note, yesterday (Saturday) was such an exhausting day for me, and the boys knew I was worried about Lolly.  Last night, I stayed up late, finishing the laundry.  Just as I was heading to bed, Lolly woke up crying- and had an hour or two of throwing up and diarrhea.  I went to bed really late, and woke up to feed Sammi at 6:15 this morning.  I put her back to bed, then decided to go back to sleep until Lolly woke up.  She came in at 9 a.m.  When I walked out into the living room, this is what I saw:

Tyler and Trey had been up for about an hour, and had been BUSY.  They had polished the sink and mirror in the bathroom, swept and mopped the kitchen floor (Tyler had even posted a handwritten sign that said, "Warning Wet Floor"), dusted the whole upstairs AND downstairs, set the table for breakfast (they even set out Ben's griddle and apron- he cooks eggs for us every Sunday), and when I finally rolled out of bed, they were busy folding the rags/washcloths and bibs and putting them away (my final load of laundry I did last night- I put them in the dryer before I went to bed).  Oh- and they'd set out church clothes for Luke and Lolly (they even chose a cute outfit- that matched!- for her to wear), and had been taking care of Luke! 

Normally, I don't give my kids "chores" on Sunday, but I can't tell you how appreciative I was today.  I could not stop crying when I saw all that they had done.  When I asked them why on earth they'd done all those kind things, Tyler said he knew I'd had a rough day the day before, and they wanted to do something nice.  I'm not sure I've ever been more proud of my kids.

Kids take a lot of work.  It's amazing how difficult, expensive, time-consuming and challenging it is to be a parent.  But it is worth every single penny, every bit of worry, and every exhausting day.  I feel so blessed to have so many little people to worry about.

Good morning Luke!

As soon as I rolled out, Tyler insisted that I put my feet up- on his back!!!

Since my feet were busy resting, I had Trey grab my camera and take pictures of all the things they'd done (his pictures follow)

Ben came home from the dairy a few minutes later- and wore the apron they'd set out (he was nearly in tears as well at all the kind things the boys had done).

Trey dressing Luke for church:

Tyler massaging my feet.  He asked if my feet were hot or cold (so he could decided whether to huff warm air or blow cool air onto them).  :)

And one final shot of my [big] baby girl, to make me feel better: