Happy New Year

Ashton woke up crying New Years morning with a fever and saying her stomach was 'owie'. Poor little girl. That combination said 'Doctor' and be quick about it.

Now the 'funny' thing about this was the fact it was the very first day with our new medical insurance after 8 years. We didn't even know where we were supposed to go. An urgent care facility? A hospital? Oh yeah, and those medical cards came sometime during the holidays..... where did I put them? In that stack of 'things to get to after the holidays'..........

Luckily I knew right where that pile was and found the cards. Kevin called and within minutes she was on her way to the hospital.

I stayed home to feed the girls' friends breakfast and then headed over to the hospital once our guests left.

When I got there the nurse had told me that the reason why Ashton had stomach pain was because she was dehydrated due to the fever. They gave her the Tylenol/Motrin combo and brought her fever down and gave her a bag of fluid (she wasn't impressed). They also took all the necessary bodily 'fluids' to run some tests.

Eventually the Dr came and said that her white blood count was slightly elevated so she was fighting off something. They said they were going to write us up a prescription and then let us go. Great. (4 hours had passed by now....)




The Dr came and said that because they had us there they wanted to do chest x-rays. After more waiting the Dr came in and told us that Ashton had bacterial pneumonia. (One of the things they told us when I first arrived was that she didn't have pneumonia...... I am sure they meant to say viral?). Her stomach pain was actually because the pneumonia was so low on the lung. Ashton had had a cough which she was able to get the phlegm out. The Dr said it was less contagious than the common cold because it was so low on the lung. (They told us that one of us should plan on taking off work on Monday but she could probably go back to daycare on Tuesday- sad that they just assume....)

They came and took the IV out and then eventually let us go. What a way to ring in the new year!!! I am grateful that we have insurance so we can get medical care when necessary. (I am also grateful it isn't necessary all that often).