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Tuesday, December 11, 2007

I Feel so Helpless

My sister needs me. She needs everyone she can to gather around her and give her strength. Her son isn't doing to well. She called me at about midnight and again at 2:20 this morning. His temperature broke, which is good. But now it's going too low, which is bad. He went from 104 to 94 in the matter of a few hours then when she called me the second time he's body temp went down to 92 in spite of 3 blankets, an electric blank and my sister and her m.i.l. snuggling up to him to give him their body heat. Needless to say she's a mess right now. She's tired, she's not really slept since Sunday afternoon 'cept for a cat nap here or there. Her husband won't be able to get there till around noon today. The doctors and nurses are not listening to her (she told them about 3 hours before they took his temp that he was cold and something wasn't right).
She told me she needs a hug and oh do I wish I could be there to give her one. Even if I had the money to make the 12 hour trip there, I would have to bring all my kiddies and so I still wouldn't be able to help much.
Well she just called me and his temp has came back up. It's 99 now. The pediatrician has seen him already this morning and is upset that the other doctors were diagnosing him with an ear infection with out even looking in his ears. There was a lot of wax and they couldn't see to be sure but prescribed antibiotics anyway. Well I guess she scraped out the wax so she could see and said his ears looked perfectly normal. So now they are waiting for a gastroentologist to come in and check him out. They said the reason for the temp changes is because of all the antibiotics he's been on at once. So she's taking him off all of them so she can see the symptoms and have something to go on. He's still having cold sweats and my sister says he feels like ice. She says she just wants to wake up. This is a nightmare for her. Currently they still don't know what is going on with the little guy (he's only two btw, I don't think I said that before).
Times like this I hate that I have very little medical knowledge(I'm only a nurse's assistant and have an associates of science degree majored in medical assisting, so very very limited knowledge) and wish I could be more help. I wish I could fix this for her and him. It kills me that I can't fix it, that I can't tell her what it most likely is. It makes me want to finish college even more so I can tell my family and friends and reassure them or explain things to them when they or their loved ones get sick.

1 comment:

LarryLilly said...

I know the worst of feelings that a parent can face with a child in the ER this time of year. Yeah, you want it to be a bad dream. I know for her she will soon be able to look back on this and sigh over the feelings she felt then.

I do know however that at some minuscule times that isnt the case.

She and her son are in my thoughts as one that makes it through.