CLICK HERE FOR FREE BLOG LAYOUTS, LINK BUTTONS AND MORE! »

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Shocked beyond belief--Audrey has WHAT?????

And I thought things couldn't get any worse. Please.

I wrote here about how I screwed up my appointment for my liver ultrasound this past Friday. Well, I actually managed to pull it off yesterday. I was a good little patient and didn't drink any coffee in the morning.  ::takes a bow::

Since we happened to be near Mom's house after the ultrasound, we decided to meet her for lunch. My phone rang, and it was a number I didn't recognize. My first thought, of course, was Oh no. They've found something really wrong with my liver and are contacting me right away.

I'm thankful that it wasn't that, but I was NOT happy to hear a nurse tell me that Audrey's so-called "stomach virus", which I wrote about here and here, was actually salmonella. Excuse me? I must have heard you incorrectly. In fact, what she actually said was, "I'm afraid Audrey has a little case of salmonella." Little? Are you freaking kidding me? Okay, I know she was trying to be nice and delicate in order not to upset me, but oh. my. word.

I was in shock. The nurse, Robin, said that Dr. J (not her regular pedi, the one she saw for the "virus") would be calling me after he saw all his patients for the day, that he wanted to discuss treatment options.

Okay, people, so you want to know how to freak out a mom? Tell her that her baby has salmonella, and then make her wait for HOURS for a phone call telling her how you're going to treat her precious baby.

I was in tears, and Mom didn't know what to say. Matt immediately got on the Internet, since I'm nuts when it comes to looking up symptoms for stuff. Like, I immediately jump to the worst possible scenario.

We didn't learn anything much, and before I knew it, it was 6:40. That's right, approximately 6 1/2 hours after receiving the initial phone call. I wanted to do this to that doctor:

Image and video hosting by TinyPic
http://hijinksensue.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/2008-01-10-wii-strangle.jpg


because I knew he was finished with patients for the day. The office was closed, for goodness' sakes. I decided to call the after-hours number, and what do you know? Dr. J was on call.

He apologized profusely for the confusion, saying he thought Robin told me about Audrey's treatment. Uh....no. He was so apologetic that I decided not to hurt him. Then he told me about the treatment. Guess what it was? Nothing. We do absolutely nothing.

Dr. J said that giving her an antibiotic would prolong the "carrier stage", the stage in which she would still be shedding salmonella cells. ::shudder:: The only reason I didn't argue was that he called a Pediatric Infectious Disease specialist, and she agreed that she would not treat with antibiotics unless Audrey was 3 months old or younger. Who am I to argue with that? We're just supposed to monitor her, especially her temp, since a high temp would be the first sign that it's gotten into her bloodstream.

I asked him, where the heck did she get this? She has NONE of the risk factors, which basically are:

1. attending daycare with a child who has diarrhea (she doesn't go to daycare and hasn't played with any other small children),

2. having a reptile as a pet (I don't think so),

3. riding in a grocery cart next to raw poultry (NOT),

4. traveling outside the US over the age of 3 months (nope), and

5. drinking concentrated liquid infant formula (not powdered or regular).

Okay, she does have one of the risk factors now that I think about it, because she isn't breastfed. But still, who expects this diagnosis? Dr. J said he's only seen 3-4 cases of it, and there are only 50,000 cases in the US each year.

I just thank God, over and over again, that Audrey's feeling better. But I'm more worried than ever about her and the things that could happen to her. People are right; you don't really know worry until you have a child.

0 comments:

Post a Comment