Meningitis

As a mother, it is only natural to get excited for all of the "firsts" in your child's life. Their first smile, first words, and first steps are things you will always remember. This last week we experienced a first in Brynn's life that will be remembered, but not fondly. Brynn had her first illness, which resulted in her first hospital stay. Brynn spent 3 days and 2 nights in the hospital with Viral Meningitis. There has been a lot of sickness going around our family including Scott, Mason, and I all having various symptoms over the past week. We tried so hard to protect Brynn from all the germs by keeping her home and away from people who were sick. Scott even slept in the basement and didn't hold Brynn to avoid giving it to her. Once I got sick on Sunday night I knew there was a good chance Brynn would get some degree of sickness, but hoped I would give her enough antibodies through my milk to protect her. Monday afternoon when Brynn was abnormally fussy I was sure she was getting sick so I watched her closely. Sure enough Monday evening she got a fever and started crying inconsolably. I spent the night holding and rocking her trying to sooth her without much success. I took Brynn to the doctor first thing the next morning. She still had a fever despite the Tylenol I gave her, was still crying non-stop, had a rash all over her body, and was now becoming quite mottled. The doctor was concerned with the fact Brynn had such a high temperature (it got as high as 103.9 that day) as a six week old and informed me it was a new protocol that any baby under 3 months with a temp greater than 100.5 had to have a series of tests done to rule out things such as sepsis and meningitis. He sent us to the hospital to be admitted and run all the tests. At the hospital they had to start an IV which proved to be very difficult and after an hour and a half of trying all over her body they got one in her head. They were able to draw blood cultures and some other basic lab work through this and then start giving her IV fluid and IV antibiotics. They used a catheter to get a sample for a urine culture. She did not like this and pooped all over the doctor while he did it. They had to strap her down to hold still for a chest x-ray to rule out pneumonia. The worst thing they had to do was a Lumbar Puncture which is essentially the same as getting an epidural only they stick the needle in a little further and draw out fluid. They did this to test her spinal fluid for meningitis. I opted to not be there for any of this so I wouldn't have to watch her suffer and she wouldn't associate me with all the torture. After all of the trauma was done they brought her back to me and she was ghost white. It was the worst sight I have ever seen as a mother. She had been screaming and fighting for hours and it had taken everything out of her. As soon as they handed her to me she stopped crying and fell asleep in my arms. Poor baby girl. It was a few hours later that the doctor informed us the spinal fluid had come back with white blood cells which means she had meningitis. They now had to run some tests to see if it was viral or bacterial. Viral is miserable but you recover fully from it within a week. Bacterial is really scary and can cause mental retardation or even death. The doctor felt very confident it was viral because all her other lab work strongly indicated a viral infection present in the body. He told me not to worry but they had to treat it like bacterial until proven otherwise. So she was put on contact precautions, meaning the nurses and doctors had to wear gowns, gloves, and masks in her room at all times and they added another IV antibiotic. The diagnosis of meningitis explained the endless crying and screaming. Meningitis is horribly painful. Any movement of the neck causes unbearable pain. Most people who have meningitis won't move their head at all, but a 6 week old who still lacks total neck and head control is at the mercy of everyone around her to prevent her head from moving. Also it makes you very sensitive to light and so meningitis patients are kept in completely dark rooms. Once we were aware that these were things causing her pain we were able to help her a little more. That night was another horrible night of her crying all night long. She would cry so hard whenever she was in the crib or a nurse would hold her. When I would hold her she would just whimper and look at me with the saddest eyes that showed how much pain she was in. So I held her all night long...anything to make her feel even a little bit better. The next morning after zero sleep she finally passed out from exhaustion for an hour and woke up apartly feeling much better. From then on she kept getting better and better until she was just a little fussy at times. By Thursday afternoon all the tests had come back that confirmed it was viral meningitis caused by an enterovirus which is most common in July and August and was most likely what everyone in our family had been sick with. Brynn was doing so much better and the doctors were ready to send her home except she wasn't eating at all. I had to pump almost every time she was supposed to eat to maintain my milk supply because she refused to eat at all. The doctor said we would have to spend one more night which was so discouraging because I knew Brynn was so sick of all the tubes and wires and that was part of the problem, but I understood the doctor's concern. Finally at 6:30 pm Brynn ate really well and when the doctor stopped by at 8:00 pm to check on us he said we could go home!! YAY!! When we got home Brynn passed out asleep and only got up at 2am to eat because we woke her up for Tylenol. She has pretty much been sleeping non-stop since then to make up for the three days and nights of literally no sleep lasting longer than a hour. Brynn seems to be almost 100% now once she can catch up on her sleep. Thank you for all the texts and phone calls from friends and family. We especially appreciate my parents who once again took care of Mason for 3 days straight and let us come home to their house while Scott is in Florida for work. (Seriously, what is the deal with the timing of his business trips?) Now for the pictures. Poor, miserable, baby girl. A rare moment of sleep. Notice how red her eyes were. The blanket looks like it's suffocating her, but really it was just blocking the light from the monitors. The IV. You can't imagine how much fun we had getting all that tape off while trying to leave hair on her head. Luckily the nurses have several tricks they use that help with the process. Where Brynn and I spent most of our time. This was when Brynn was feeling much better. It feels so good to be home and be able to kick around without any wires or tubes tying her down. This was the first smile she had given me all week. I just happened to have the camera next to me and was able to catch the tail end of it. She has been all smiles today. Check out those cheeks! It's no wonder she didn't have to eat. She could live off of those for a week.

Wow, a lot of really long posts lately. I promise the next one will be fun with more pictures than words.