Off to Emerg...

Unfortunately it's been a rough week for Taylor. She has been screaming in pain on and off. And feeding has become a real struggle. For the past few weeks her fluid intake has gone down significantly. Yesterday she drank better, but wouldn't eat her meals. Today she drank a little, then refused everything altogether.

I spoke with the Neurology nurse yesterday about my concern of kidney stones. She's been drinking so poorly the past few weeks, and has these sudden onsets of extreme pain. Kidney stones are a rare side effect of being on the ketogenic diet. She talked to our Neurologist and he suggested some preliminary bloodwork and urine analysis to do some initial investigations. We went to the lab at Children's this afternoon and had that done.

After the labwork was done we had a chance to talk with Taylor's dietician about my concerns over feeding. She indicated that we may need to temporarily get her back on track with a feeding tube in her nose. I talked to her about my concern about kidney stones and told her that we had been for labwork.

I have tried to get in to see Taylor's pediatrician but he is fully booked. Between the pediatrician's office, the nurse in Neurology, and the dietician, all have advised going to Emergency if the screaming continues. She was fine today while we were at the hospital for labwork, so we went home.

Unfortunately the painful cries started again this evening, so I packed up and headed to Emerg. When we got to Children's, the emergency room was full, but because of Taylor's increased seizures and the fact that she is more susceptible to infection due to the Ketogenic Diet, we were taken to a bed right away. The triage nurse noted a rash which had just appeared. Tiny red dots around her head, behind her ears, all over her torso, back and diaper area. The doctor thought that the rash looked viral. The lab work from earlier in the day had come back, all the bloodwork was fine. The urine had some white blood cells, indicative of a urinary tract infection, but because the urine sample was collected by bag, they wanted to re-test the urine and use a catheter to collect it. So that was done and when it came back, there were no white blood cells, so the doctor feels pretty confident in ruling out a UTI. There was however some blood in the urine, could be a sign of kidney stones, or could be from the catheter. They also did a chest x-ray which came back clear, however there was one area on it that the doctor was unsure about. So the decision was made to admit us, do an ultrasound in the morning and go from there.

So here we are at Children's...again :-(