Sunday, June 22, 2008

Fever... but no cowbell

It's been a bit of a rough week... make that 4 or 5 rough weeks. Poor Elise has been battling a UTI (urinary tract infection), her second since she was born. Actually, I guess technically it's her third, since they found more bacteria after she finished up her antibiotics two weeks ago and had to start her on yet another round of antibiotics.
It all started about 5 weeks ago when I noticed she was feeling a bit warm one evening. So I took her temperature and noticed it was 100.7. Not high enough to get excited about, but definitely something to watch. So I started to track her temps and noticed while they would start off normal in the mornings, they would always rise through the day, and spike right before bedtime... but always in the low-grade range.

I mentioned it to the doc during Elise's 9 month well child visit, so she decided to do a urine test (because of Elise's history with UTIs), and found bacteria. She started her on antibiotics, but the fever still stuck around. Plus she was just not acting like herself... cranky and out of sorts. So after another test, and more bacteria and more antibiotics, Elise is STILL running a low grade fever.

I say last week was tough because I had to take her for an renal ultrasound (to make sure her kidneys were okay - and they were) on Monday. It's not that big of a deal, but try to tell that to a 9 month old who has no idea why a stranger is pushing some strange object on her tummy. They did allow me to lie on the table with her, which calmed her down a lot.

Then on Friday, we had to take her for a CT scan, which would give us a better look at her kidneys, to make sure there wasn't an infection in there. The worst part was, they had to sedate her. I was really worried about the effect it would have on Elise, but she had no side effects from the sedation. We got the results back and everything looks normal. Except that she's still running a fever.

So I'm frustrated because we have done all these tests on her, stuffed her full of antibiotics and we're at the exact same place we were 5 weeks ago, except we know what it isn't, I suppose. Please pray for Elise... we need to figure this out.
Elise playing at the hospital, waiting for her CT scan

P.S. It's not teething

2 comments:

Jade Clark said...

Aww, I'm so sorry to hear that. Poor Elise. I know how hard it is to have a kiddo who has something going on with them, and yet doctors can't figure it out right away...such frustration! Ours was constant and frequent fevers too. Preston's pretty much ended up being the combination of asthma and allergies (allergies causing asthma attacks, actually), but we didn't find that out for way too long and only after we took him to an allergy specialist (no thanks to our pedi who REFUSED to refer us to one - jerkface). Anyway, hang in there and just keep after it. I'm definitly praying the fevers cease.

Emily said...

I'm so sorry to hear that Elise is having a hard time! That must be so frustrating to have the antibiotics not helping and the doctors not being able to give you any answers. I hope that she gets better and that you don't have to worry too much before they find out what's going on. We'll be praying for her and for you and Fred to have peace of mind! Let us know if you find anything out...