Fear

So, a little something I didn't mention about Shay's ER visit was that her CBC came back with her WBC (White blood count) and Platelets low and her CRP (C-reactive protein) was elevated.

We had a follow up with her Ped today at 11. Craig took her temp early this morning and it was normal for once! unfortunately it was back up to 102.2 when we started getting ready at 9 (now day 7 of this thing) so I gave her some more motrin. While brushing her hair I noticed her chest was covered with a rash, upon looking more it's her chest, belly, and back and a bit on her face. It actually made me feel better thinking "good, now we have something the doc can look at, identify, and this will be over".

We get to the doc and the nurse notices just how absolutely pale she is, and how sunken her eyes are. Doc comes in and I give her the rundown of the past week and she asks Shay to get up on the exam table, noticing she's definitely NOT bouncing around as usual.

I notice how the doc pays careful attention to checking all her lymph nodes and feeling her belly. She looks at the rash and says "doesn't LOOK like a strep rash..... definitely doesn't fit a Lyme rash" but decides to run both tests anyway. She mentions her "really low" WBC and Platelet counts. She swabs Shay's throat which of course sends Shay over her limit (the child who usually tolerates everything with the greatest finesse) and she buries her head in her hands sobbing. Doc, who NEVER gives kids suckers must've felt bad cause she offered her one, which Shaylin declined by refusing to remove her hands from her teary face. The doctor leaves the room with a look on her face I've only see once before.... When she found Nate's heart murmer, almost a year to the month after we buried our Alex with a heart defect.

The nurse comes in a bit later with a sad look on her face and tells us the Strep was negative again (it was in the ER too), how sad that we all hoped for a positive strep test! So down to lab we go, all of us desperately hoping for a rebound of those blood counts.

Down to lab we go for them to poke my sweet girl once again. After about 15 minutes of visually looking for a decent vein and finding nothing the brave needle yielding lady decided to just decides to go for it with the one that looks like a maybe. She was very gentle with her digging, a gesture that was completely lost on my sobbing 8 year old who is doing her best to squeeze the thing in her hand to try to pump up her itty bitty blood vessels. Finally success! The needle yeilding lady collects a rediculousely large amount of blood, which I figure was a plot to get more than she needed, so as not to stick this poor child again. She hands Shay and Nate both suckers and gives Shay so many stickers that after filling the front of her own shirt she filled Nate's too.

Now we wait. The chance that it's Lyme is minute, it's not tick season yet and this is not how Shay presented before with Lyme. But we hope for Lyme because Dr. Google tells me that the most probable alternative is more than I think I can bear....

Will you all please say a little prayer to whoever it is you credit for miracles that my sweet baby girl doesn't have what my heart won't let me stop thinking about?