Hospitals, Love, & Emunah

It's Tuesday. Yehuda Or and I are hanging out in bed in our pajamas. He's taking out the credit cards in my wallet with intense focus while I type away next to him. It's crazy that twenty four hours ago we were in the hospital, sleep deprived and scared, holding Yehuda Or down for his third blood test in 5 days.

Every two minutes or so he stops and turns his head to look at me, or reaches his hand over and grasps onto my shirt. If I get up to get my phone or if Eli needs to go into his office, he starts crying and reaching frantically. He has been through a tough week, and we're just doing our best to give him what he needs right now - lots of physical contact and reassurance that he's safe. I haven't totally processed the last week, but I know that writing about it, and giving myself the opportunity to put the experience into words will be very healing. I also know how worried all of you wonderful people were, and I want you to know what happened so that nothing's blown out of proportion and your minds are at ease.

Last Saturday night Yehuda Or woke up in the night with a fever. We gave him some tylenol and didn't think anything of it when the fever continued over the next couple of days. Babies get fevers and there are plenty of viruses going around right now. By Thursday morning we noticed that the fever was getting higher and more constant. He was also acting worse rather than better. All he wanted to do was sleep. It was the fifth day and I felt like it was time to check in with a doctor. We have two great pediatricians (Dr. Borjel and Dr. Godfree) that we see depending on who's available. Dr. Godfree (who calls himself Doctor Max with a very heavy British accent) was concerned at how long the fever was lasting and wanted him to get some tests done. He brought up a few possibilities, among them pneumonia, mono, and CMV. My heart dropped with the last one. I'm pregnant, and that virus can be extremely dangerous to an unborn fetus. Immediately all of the food I'd been sharing with Yehuda Or in the past few days popped into my head and I felt extreme guilt creeping up on me.
"But I'm pregnant!" I blurted out to the doctor. He took a deep breath and rubbed his forehead.
"Then you need to get a blood test."
"When does Yehuda Or need to get his tests. Should we go together on Sunday morning?"
"No. You need to go tonight. Now. If he has a bacterial infection and it's already been five days it is extremely important that he start treatment. He needs to be diagnosed now."

I called Eli on the walk back, my hands shaking and uncontrollable tears beginning to pour out of my eyes. I totally lost it. First time of many over the next few days. Eli calmed me down and told me to come home and we would cab to Terem all together. I felt so worried, so irresponsible, and like the situation was so beyond my control. Both of my little babies were potentially in danger.

Terem was the beginning of five days of tests, results, questions, and challenges. The doctor at Terem concluded that it must be a bacterial infection even though there were no signs of one, besides a slightly elevated white blood cell count (he had a blood test, a urine test, and two chest x-rays). Six hours later he prescribed amoxocilin and sent us home. The fever continued over night and through Friday. After almost 24 hours of being on the antibiotics his fever reached 104.2 while on tylenol. Shabbat was in 40 minutes and we didn't know what to do. The fever went down in about 10 minutes after giving him some ibuprofen and putting a cold cloth on his head. We decided to wait. Maybe he simply had not enough of the antibiotics yet. He woke us up at midnight hysterical. His body was scorching hot and he was shivering and moaning like he had the chills. We took his temperature and it was 104.5. We immediately jumped out of bed. A family friend who's a P.A. told us that if the fever went above 103.5 we should go to the hospital. Just as we were deciding what to do, Yehuda Or starting vomiting. A lot. He just continued to throw up until he collapsed crying on Eli's shoulder. We called an ambulance and grabbed a bag with diapers.

At Shaarei Tzedek hospital we were taken to the children's emergency ward and a crabby nurse began the entry tests. Yehuda Or was crying so hard that she couldn't get his accurate blood pressure. She told him to stop crying and told us that children always loved her and she was offended that he wouldn't stop crying. She was dead serious. For the sake of time I'm not going to go into how many doctors and nurses were rude, insensitive, and disrespectful during this whole experience. All I can say is, with a few exceptions, this experience made me feel even more distant and untrusting of the medical professionals in this country. Yehuda Or was either treated with frustration or indifference. We were treated as unintelligent first time parents that had no right to know what was being done to our child. I never missed my warm, reassuring family doctor in Denver more.

After more blood tests, urine tests, and several exams the doctor on call told us that she was unsure of what was happening. Everything had come back normal and yet his fever remained dangerously high. She upped his dose of antibiotics and discharged us on the condition that we would go see our pediatrician Sunday morning. It was 6:15 AM Shabbat morning and we hadn't brought his stroller or coats in our panic. We were exhausted, traumatized, and starving. My pregnant body was begging me to lie down and sleep. We decided to walk home. We bundled Yehuda Or in blankets and started our hike to Rechavia. We got home around 8:00 AM and Eli took Yehuda Or while I collapsed and slept deeper than I've slept in months. They both soon joined me. We made sure to give Yehuda Or medicine every 4 to 6 hours to prevent his fever from spiking. But he remained miserable, lethargic, and after two scary nights with doctors, wouldn't let me change his diaper without screaming in fear. I felt like I had betrayed his trust. Even though I know we were doing what's best for him, I just felt like he was so confused as to why we were letting people hurt him.

Sunday morning Dr. Borjel said everything looked fine, and to keep giving him the antibiotics but he personally thought it was a virus and would go away within 48 hours. We were relieved but also unsatisfied since the fever continued and he seemed even worse. His coloring had started turning yellowish and he basically slept the entire day. That evening we got a call from Shaarei Tzedek. One of the blood tests had just come back and his CRP levels were extremely high. This indicated an infection or inflammation. We needed to come in immediately. She mumbled something about an ultrasound and E-coli and hung up. I started bawling. I just kept saying "I can't, I can't, I can't." I just couldn't do it to him again. I felt like they had no idea what they were looking for and with no regards for the fact that these tests were invasive and traumatic to a thirteen month old, they just wanted to keep going. I felt like screw protocol. Of course after speaking to our parents and being unable to get a hold of either of our pediatricians we knew we had to go.

Yehuda Or started crying as soon as we entered the hospital lobby. He started clinging to my neck and burying his head into my chest. I felt like he was begging me to leave. More exams. More blood tests. More running my fingers through my baby's sweaty hair singing the itsy bitsy spider while he screams "Ma!" with his eyes wide open in terror. Holding back my own tears was often impossible. It broke my heart to see him so scared, so confused. Between tests he would fall asleep, exhausted and heaving, only to be woken up again and held down for more. I had to keep going to the bathroom to splash water on my face, look myself in the mirror and say "You're the mother, you need to be calm. Snap out of it!" I just couldn't hold it together, I wanted my mom, I wanted a kind doctor to explain something to us, I wanted to take Yehuda Or and run home.

Monday morning Yehuda Or's fever was gone! We were so excited and I was determined to refuse any more testing and insist that it was over. Around 7:45 AM however the fever was back. Our case was passed on to a Infectious Disease specialist who spoke perfect English, was extremely gentle and kind, and was happy to explain everything to us with a soft smile on her face. She wanted us to rule out any heart problems, particularly a rare inflammation of the arteries that can indicate a high CRP level. We held Yehuda Or down for an in-depth 25 minute ultrasound of his heart and arteries. He never said "Ema" and "Abba" so clearly. The doctor said that although his arteries were "prominent" they were not inflamed. The heart disease was ruled out. He was sent for another x-ray session of his lungs. Normal. No sign of infection found. The doctor said to go home. If Tuesday at noon he still had any fever we needed to be indefinitely admitted into the hospital until diagnosis. If his fever was gone (without medication) then we could conclude it was a horrible case of the flu and it's over.

It's currently 1:00 and he has been fever free for 24 hours! I am relieved, still nervous, shaken up, and SO THANKFUL all at the same time. This experience made me feel SO empathetic for parents who have children with serious illnesses and conditions that force them to live in and out of the hospital. I would go through child birth a million times rather than feel the horrendous dread of my child's life being in danger. I have never asked for anything with my entire being until now. I thought I had, but now I realize that I hadn't. As I am coming out of this experience I also feel incredibly grateful for such wonderful friends and family who called and texted and facebooked and davened for us. When I asked for friends to pray and spread the word I wish that I had been more specific about what was happening and made sure that people knew he was in the hospital for tests due to a FEVER. I only realized after that the facts were unclear and people thought there had been an accident or a fatal diagnosis. THANK G-D this was a teeny tiny NOTHING of an incident compared to what happens. I really want to do my best to integrate this experience as a lesson. I'm not sure yet what I learned. I do in a way feel stronger. And more protective of my decisions. I feel disillusioned by doctors. I really felt like most of the tests were redundant and based on protocol rather than brain power. But maybe that's just anger that will subside with time. I am sure of one thing - holding my child close and doing everything that I can to protect him (and my unborn little bean in there) is the most important thing in the world to me.

I'm sorry that there's no uplifting or inspirational conclusion to this post. I'm just not there yet. But I feel positive, not at all depressed. I really want to thank everyone for being there for us and I wish a huge REFUAH SHELEMAH to all of the children and adults out there that are sick. Please Hashem, we should all be healthy so that we can enjoy this wonderful world and do our unique part in making it a better place.