You Know that Saying, God Doesn't Give You More Than You Can Handle?

I don't believe it right now. Our oldest daughter woke up on Wednesday, a day when the school system had already cancelled school because of earlier day's enormous snowfall, with a fever of 106. Yes, 106. Terrifying in itself combined with her lethargy, crying and complaints of stomach and head pain. My husband took off work to take her to the clinic and since she showed no outward signs of infection she had the complete workup, blood, urine, etc., while she vomited in between. I'm so glad I didn't have to be there for that but at the same time waiting at home those long hours was extremely stressful. We were told that her white blood count was high and that she was likely fighting an infection, possibly blood or urinary tract.

Yesterday her temp continued to spike to 105-106 in between doses of pain relievers which didn't even always reduce the fever. Her little body convulsed in severe cases of shivers. She screamed in pain when I put her into a lukewarm bath to cool her off. I cannot accurately describe what I felt yesterday. Mostly I tried not to feel. It was almost too much to bear. My breasts began leaking milk when I comforted her. Lovely reminder of the child I lost less than two weeks ago. My anxiety and grief only heightened by the extreme fear for my daughter's health not knowing exactly what was wrong with her or how to help her.

We found out today that she has a urinary tract infection. Simple, right? Take a course of antibiotics and boom, all done. Not so simple for us. This same child had a UTI when she was two, a very uncommon bacteria, which set off a round of testing, invasive testing, which uncovered the presence of VUR (vesicouretal urinary reflux) and resulted in two outpatient surgeries to correct and many subsequent visits to determine it was resolved. Now, that wound, almost five years in our past, has been reopened. We are now to follow up with the specialist who treated her and I am not quite sure what he will want to do.

The VUR that I believed, like Potter's, that I had paid my dues for. That I had somehow outrun and left behind. I pray that it is still gone. I pray that despite a 33-34% chance of our other daughters having the same condition that we don't have to take that path with them. No sedatives, no dyes, no begging for them to urinate in front of a bunch of people as they cry and beg to just be left alone. No surgeries and watching a tiny little girl be rolled away on a big bed and put to sleep and then left alone in a room with a bunch of strangers. No more. No more, no more suffering for my family.

Today is my two week followup after Eli's birth and I'm already scared. I don't believe I've mentioned the complications. Not for me, but for our journey towards answers. Because after Eli was born we experienced one of the worst blizzards of the year which brought traffic literally to a standstill, some of Eli's samples were unable to be sent out for testing and as of now we don't know whether we'll get any results outside of autopsy results. I've not heard any results yet and I'm really scared.