The Clark Crew: An eventful week

We've had a busy week around here - Tuesday evening Rachel felt like she was running a fever, and when I took her temperature, it was over 103 degrees! The 'rule' is that if a baby under three months has a fever over 100, you're supposed to get them to the doctor immediately. So, off I went to outpatients clinic at the Beaverlodge hospital. They got me in pretty quickly and after examining Rachel, the doctor consulted with the on-call pediatrician in Grande Prairie. He wanted to see her right away, so they sent Rachel and I to the Grande Prairie hospital by ambulance (!).

Greg had been in Grande Prairie for a meeting, so he met us at the ER. We spent a few hours there, with poor Rachel having all kinds of blood drawn, x-rays taken, an IV inserted (after six tries), and even a spinal tap done. Greg finally went home around 3:00am when they had finished all the tests, and I stayed with Rachel. We got admitted to the Pediatric ward around 4:00.

It was a long couple of days - I stayed with Rachel around the clock, sleeping on a cot in her room, and Greg had to take care of the kids, as well as pack and organize them and himself for this weekend. Greg is doing the wedding of one of our youth sponsors tomorrow in Manitoba, and I was supposed to go with him, leaving the two older kids with friends here. Unfortunately Rachel had to stay in the hospital getting IV antibiotics, so we weren't able to go with him when the plane left on Thursday morning. :(

We did come home Thursday evening on a day pass (they couldn't technically discharge her since there were some test results still to come back) and the hospital called this morning to tell us that the 48-hour test results were negative as well, so she was officially discharged. They didn't ever figure out exactly what was causing the fever, but our doctor thinks it may have been a bladder infection.

It wasn't a fun week, but there were so many little things that showed us that God was taking care of us through it. I had no trouble finding someone to watch Gavin and Abby while I took Rachel to outpatients. The EMT in the ambulance that took us to Grande Prairie was a friend of mine, so I had a friendly face and someone to talk to on the ride in. Greg was already in Grande Prairie and was able to meet us there right away - he actually ended up driving right behind the ambulance! We weren't sure how I was going to get home when it was time, since I came in the ambulance and not my vehicle, but a friend happened to need to pick up her van from the repair shop on Wednesday, so she drove our car in and parked it at the hospital for me so it was right there waiting. A few people came to visit me (right when I was feeling lonely and stuck in the small room) and brought thoughtful gifts of food, candy, and magazines.

I have a lot of compassion for parents of seriously ill children who spend so much of their time at the hospital - I only did it for a couple of days and that was more than enough for me! It's interesting how quickly that little room becomes your world - putting used diapers in a special container for the nurses to weigh to check how much baby is eating, doing everything within a three-foot radius of the IV pole, the sound of other patients ringing the call bell for the nurses, the IV pump making the irritating beep-beep-beep way too many times because Rachel's kicked her foot and kinked the tubing and it thinks there's a clog in the line. It was our first hospital experience with any of our kids...and hopefully the last!