Zoya's First (and hopefully only?) trip to the Emergency Room and an Update

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. Things here have been crazy. I'll start with the title of this post: our trip to the ER.  On Thursday Zoya had a doctor appointment for her 2 year checkup and to follow up from our last appointment.  They gave her 5 vaccines.  Yes, 5 :( My gut said to tell them not to do that many but I didn't want to be that parent...you know the one who knows more than the doctor...because I don't, but I just had a feeling.  Anyways, they gave her MMR (which we were told she had in Ukraine but the antibodies bloodwork showed she never had it or the vaccine wasn't stored correctly there, which wouldn't be a surprise), chicken pox, DTP, Hepatitis A, and one other one I can't recall right now.  The nurse mentioned we might want to give her some motrin when we got home and into the following day because the DTP might be a litle painful. They never mentioned anything about a fever, or even to watch for one.  Being new parents, we didn't know that.

We got home, Zoya ate lunch just fine, got her hair cut and she was her normal happy self.  Then came nap time.  She has been doing better with nap time as long as I put her in the baby carrier and rock her to sleep, she will sleep on me for 40 minutes and then wake up and then sleep next to me on the couch for a little while longer.  But anyways, nap time came, she fell asleep very quickly in the baby carrier and woke up after 20 minutes and would not go back to sleep. This was no surprise given her napping performance for the past 3 weeks.  I tried a million different ways to get her to sleep because I could tell she was tired but she just screamed (also not a shock since she's been known to do that as well).  Shawn decided to take her for a drive (you know the thing we swore we'd never do...ya do whatcha gotta do I guess). He called me a bit panicked and said she was throwing up.  He said he had to pull the car over and rip her out because when she started throwing up she was choking on her vomit...nice picture huh? He gave her a few hard slaps on the back to help her get it all out.  I then called her doctor while Shawn was on his way home with her to ask if this could be caused by the vaccines. They said they'd call me back.    Meanwhile, Shawn and Zoya got home and she was burning up. We took her temperature which was 105 degrees! Shawn panicked and so then I did as well.  All I could think was she was having some horrible allergic reaction to the vaccines and I didn't know what to do. I knew a cool bath is good for a fever, but I was so worried it was something more and didn't want her to stop breathing or have a seizure or something.  We stripped her down and put cool compresses on her neck/face/under her arms and took off for the hosptial.  Zoya was perectly fine all afternoon and then BAM it all happened so fast.  Oh I forgot to mention, this fever was with motrin already in her (which we gave to her when we got back from her apt. as instructed).

Shawn drove so fast and maybe almost ran over a few people.  We had all the windows down and the air blasting and the cool compresses on her.  She kept closing her eyes like they were just so heavy and then she would just cry the saddest cry I've ever heard. I felt so helpless.  We got to the ER and they took her temperature which was still at 104.7 after all of our fever reducing attempts.  They gave her some tylenol and we waited and waited and waited. Apparently they weren't as worried as we were.  They checked for a UTI (which, by the way, should be it's own post...how to collect urine from a 2 year old), but it was negative.  The doctor said sometimes this happens as a bad reaction to vaccinations. I said really, a fever THAT high? He said yes. He said it was either that or a virus.....umm excuse me she was perfectly fine and dandy right until she got those vaccines.  Too coincidental.  And after thinking about it, that really is a lot of vaccines to bombard her little body with. So we spent the afternoon in the ER, came home and she was exhausted. She continued throwing up a bit into the night and had a hard time keeping the tylenol down.  Today her fever finally started coming down and actually reached normal at one point (but then went back up a little). She has started to act like herself again just this evening, which is nice to see.

While Zoya was so sick, we got to know her a little better.  She was the most pathetic little thing...however, she DID manage to smile and wave at a few people in the hospital.  It was like "sad face, oh wait I really want to be my happy self...smile....wave....Oh crap, I feel like poop I'm going to cry again." It was really nice to see her reach out to us for comfort in a way we hadn't seen before.  She did allow us to try to comfort her and wanted to be held and rocked and sung to and kissed on.  I almost feel confident saying that by today, she was milking it for all it was worth...smart girl :) 

Some other interesting facts about Zoya:

1.)She is sooooo happy in the mornings.  We have a video baby monitor so we can see her in her room. This is a good idea but can easily become an anxiety filled obsession of watching the monitor. I don't look much anymore, I just listen...but this morning, we were watching because we heard her wake up. She was all alone in her room standing in her crib DANCING and smiling!! Haha. We just watched and laughed. When we went in to get her she laughed she was so excited to see us!
2.) She is too smart for us. We have to be very careful about what we let her see us do. For example, the bathtub. She has been trying to figure out how I get the water to drain. She has looked at the little valve thingy and played with it and tried to figure it out. I know I have to push the valve down while she is not looking or she will have it figured out after only one time. She watches and observes everything...how to open and close cupboards and doors, how to take the tray off her high chair, how to turn lights on (except she can't reach)....so we have to be careful with what we do in front of her because she only takes one time to learn all the things we wish she wouldn't learn just yet :)
3.) Zoya can climb all of our stairs (all 17 of them). It is quite a funny story actually....Shawn was working and I had to go to the bathroom. So I left the door open to keep an eye on her like I usually do. She is very good at entertaining herself and exploring the house (it is all safe for her and there isn't anything she can really get into). I was literally in the bathroom for less than 2 minutes.  I was washing my hands and I realized I didn't hear her moving around anymore.  I heard a pounding above my head and thought, well that MUST be the dog. Looked down and there is the dog at my feet.  Nooooo I thought! No way. We had showed her how to climb the small set of three stairs and she tired very easily and hasn't yet had an interest in climbing them when we want to work on that. So I fly up the stairs and see her all the way down the hall at the bathroom door. When our eyes met she started laughing so hard.  I couldn't help but laugh while thanking my lucky stars that she didn't fall all the way down the stiars and crack her head open.  So I took her down to the bottom stair and said "show me." She refused to climb even one stair that little bugger!
4.) She has learned a couple new signs: bird (she LOVES birds), and baby.  And her new favorite word is,"HI." I will look at her and say "HI" and she will get a big smile and say it right back!
5.) She has regular old Trisomy 21, not Mosaic DS....which really doesn't mean a thing!
6.) She is developing an odd obsession with artificial trees.  She has to keep her eyes on artificial trees (especially in new places) at all times, as if they will attack her or something if she turns her back.
7.) She has learned to sign "sorry" ON THE WAY to her time out chair! As if I'd let her off without having her serve her time! (the whole one minute) LOL.
8.) She can scoot her high chair across the kitchen floor with the wheels locked!
9.) She is STUBBORN as the day is long!
10.) She always has to have one shoe in each hand (whether or not she is wearing them on her feet as well).

Zoya at the doctor's office before her shots:

Zoya at home showing off her bandaids (one kid at the doctor's office actually said, "no fair, she has more bandaids than me.") Note how happy she looks here.

And happy as a clam here too. If only we knew a couple hours later we'd be at the ER :(

And Zoya at the ER....sad face :(

Zoya's positive TB reaction (which is common in kids who have been immunized against TB)

Recovering...

So Tired....but trying to smile

Chillin with her ba ba

More to come on Zoya's firt trip to the Zoo and her first haircut :)