If it's not one thing, it's another....

As many of you already know Callen has been sick again. I don't think it has anything to do with last time but it was stressful nonetheless. It all started last Monday when Callen woke up from her nap, she felt really warm so I took her temp. It was 103.8, so I gave her Tylenol and it came down a little, she had a fever through the night at at 3 in the morning it was 104.5 so we took her to the ER. The people at the ER made us feel dumb for going in, and took her temperature wrong, they said it was normal but I could tell it wasn't, so I asked them to re-take it, they were not happy but finaly did and it was 102, after the tylenol, anyway they said ther wasn't anything they could do so they sent us home.

The next night she was up all night and her fever was up to 105.4, I just alternated motrin and tylenol but it only brought her fever down to the 101 range. I got her into the clinic here on base and they decided to do some tests to find out why she had such a high fever. So the Dr. ordered bloodwork, a urine sample, and a chest x-ray. Dan showed up towards the end of the appt. an waited with me for lab results. The Nurse came back to get us and we could tell by the look on his face it wasn't good news. He got us back to the room and told us they were starting an IV. I asked why and all he said was "doctor's orders."

Then the Dr. comes in and said that she was Neutropenic... ??? What's that? That means that her Neutrophils which are the main white blood cells were severely low. The Dr. Said they should be above 1500, anything below that is low, anything below 1000 was moderately low and anything below 500 is severely low. Hers were at 250. So the Dr. told us she was starting an IV to get her blood pressure up and they were giving her 2 shots of antibiotics and the Ambulance was on the way to transport us to San Antonio to the hospital there. At this point I am crying uncontrolably and my head is going a million miles an hour thinking she has leukemia and shes going to die etc. etc. You know how imaginations work.

So, for the first time I rode in an ambulance... it really is not comfortable at all. We got checked into the hospital Wed. evening where they did more bloodwork and the doctors checked her out. We stayed in the hospital until Saturday while her Neutrophil count continued to go down but she seemed to be improving. We finally were able to get her to eat and drink so we could take the IV out and she started to get a little rash. they looked at her blood cells and didn't se anything abnormal that would indicate Cancer... Whew. Because of the high temperatures and the rash the Doctors think she got the virus Roseola but for some reason it totally wiped out her immune system. With her white blood cells that low they told us if she happened to get anything her body wouldn't be able to mount a defense.

Saturday afternoon they said since Callen had gone over 24 hours without a fever they would release us to stay in a hotel off base but we had to come back in on Monday for more bloodwork. So this morning I took her in for her tests and when the lab results came back her Neutrophil count was down to 40. Nobody has any answers why it keeps going down other than it will take awhile for her body to recover. They said it could take up to 2 months for her White blood cells to go back to normal. So even though her count was down to 40 they said that she didn't have a fever, she looked fine, and they are pretty sure it was Roseola, they said we could go home and just re-test her the end of this week. SO, Callen and I were able to come home from San Antonio today. She has been acting like she feels fine, so that makes me feel good but I really wish her blood count would go back up. They sent some bloodwork off to make sure it was Roseola but we won't have those results back for 3-6 weeks.

My poor baby, it is so hard to watch them in pain, I was counting up on the way home and with all the IV's and bloodwork, she was poked 10 times and had 2 shots within the last 6 days...no wonder she is still clingy. They had her hookeed up to a heartrate monitor in the hospital and everytime a nurse/doctor would walk in her heartrate would shoot up 30 beats, poor thing, she was terrified of them. What an ordeal! I am really glad to be home and Callen was able to go outside and play and she really liked that.

Anyway, thank you all for your prayers and support, we seriously have the best friends. I appreciate all of you and everything you have done for our family. I have to be super careful not to expose her to any germs, but for now she's happy and healthy and we are glad to have our baby girl home!

On, a more happy note callen finally started say mommy... well ok not exactly, she calls me
"ma nommy nommy" but hey, that's close enough right?