Semi-Emergency

Mira threw us a curve ball today. After a very sleepy and lethargic day yesterday, she started the day off by waking up with a completely dry diaper. This was unusual, but I chalked it up to her not wanting to drink much last night - she only had one bottle right before bed, but drank at least two (that I can remember) about an hour or so beforehand. She was in a pleasant mood this morning, not so much as a whimper. After she was on the bus, things started to take a turn. Her teacher said she cried the entire morning, not really taking a break, other than to drink a few bottles. She continued to have a dry diaper all morning, then at some point after lunch, the floodgates opened and she completely drenched herself - pants, shirt, socks, everything - she had to be changed out of all of her clothes entirely. She was quiet the rest of the afternoon at school, but when she arrived home, she again became extremely irritable. This was no ordinary, routine fuss, but it sounded like she was in some significant pain. She pulled her legs up to her chest and refused to bring them down. Sarah changed her, but her diaper was again dry. The diaper changing experience really caused her some discomfort and she was wailing like she had never heard her before. Sarah became concerned and called me at work about 4:00pm. By the time I got home, about 15 minutes later, she looked as though she was in some serious pain. She was crying in a way that was pretty alarming to us, again, we had never heard this type of cry from her. We called her pediatrician and decided to immediately take her in to the after-hours clinic, for starters, to see what was going on. So we called grandma to watch the boys and we packed Mira up to take her in. When I transferred her to her chair, she continued to refuse to pull her legs down - she was curled up in a rigid fetal position and was still wailing in pain.

We managed to get her into her car seat, but it was difficult to buckle her, since she was defiant in keeping her knees at her chest. About 5 minutes into the ride to our pediatrician's office, she became very quiet, slowly relaxing her knees down into the seat. By the time we arrived, we realized that she again just released everything in her bladder at once, soaking her pants and her seat in the process. We had a change of clothes, so we were prepared. At this point, after pasting together everything that had happened thus far and after talking to Tisha (our dear friend, who happens to be an RN) we figured we were probably dealing with a UTI. Mira has never had a urinary tract infection up to this point, for that matter, I don't think she has ever had an ear infection.

Ironically, by the time we checked in at the office, got Mira changed in one of the exam rooms, and finished giving a download to the nurse, Mira was worn out and simply relaxing in her chair like it was just another day. They did a catheter to draw some urine, which came back normal, except for the fact she had a low white blood cell count. However, her urine smelled incredibly foul - this could be due to her holding it in for so long, but it could also be attributed to something else. As a precaution, they gave us a prescription for an antibiotic and the office is going to run some cultures on her urine, so see if there is something there. We have no idea why she has been holding to go to the bathroom and then releasing everything at once - it could be related to a UTI, but we aren't sure at this point. They are supposed to get us lab results in the next 48 hours, but in the meantime, Mira is going to start the antibiotics.