Torture

Those that know me, know that for the most part, I'm a pretty cheery fellow, known for bouts of mischief. However, I have also been told at various times over the years that I can be pretty intimidating. Something about my face when I'm in a bad mood, or am pensive makes me look fierce and threatening. Well, you should have seen me tonight.

So today was day 4 of our hospital incarceration. Yes. I said incarceration. For that is how it feels being stuck in our tiled 1970s style hospital room. As far as we can tell, the reason the doctors haven't released us is because over the past few days, Alicia's temperature hasn't been stable and she's had a few fevers.

Well, Linda and I have been making the most of our little staycation at the hospital, and I have to admit that I have been enjoying the extra family time and the fact that Alicia has been especially cuddly since she's been ill.

But I digress, back to me being fierce and threatening.

So, for some reason, Alicia really doesn't like having her diaper changed. And over the past few days, she's been especially fussy when we lay her down to change her diaper and she especially struggles when we try to change her clothes, which is made even more complicated by the fact that her right arm has been attached to an IV.

So tonight before bed, we decided that we could change Alicia's clothes so she could be more comfortable. But that involved getting the nurse to detach her IV which is a process in and of itself. Well, our dear Alicia struggled her way through the IV detachment, and then struggled through us undressing her and dressing her again, so much so that her IV needle got dislodged. Causing blood to go back into the IV, and also around the IV.

Since we are in the hospital for at least one more day, the nurse said that she would probably need to change the IV, since this one was no good anymore. But just to be sure she would confirm with the doctor.

So she left our room. Ten minutes later, no news from her. Twenty minutes later, thirty minutes later still no news. Meanwhile, Alicia, has this syringe attached to her IV needle, dangling from her hand, which when she's not trying to eat it, ends up accidentally shoving it into my neck. So we're like, OK, what's going on? So we page the nurses station, and the nurse tells us through the monitor that the doctor is coming to change the IV, but that she's busy at the moment, and will be with us shortly.

We wait for I don't even know how long, but a long time. By now it's almost 11:00 and I want to put Alicia to bed. So finally, I decide that I am going to carry Alicia out to the nurses station and let them see her darling face, and in the kindest way possible ask them to please ask the doctor to hurry her butt up.

Well, we get out there, and the nurse sees us and says, "Wow, how did you guys know that the doctor just came up. We were just about to come get you."

All right, great. Let's get the show on the road.

So the nurse and the doctor direct us to a side room with a small examination table, and asked us to lay Alicia down.

Alicia, as I mentioned before, is very aware. As soon as I layed her down on the table, she started to cry and writhe about, probably fearing the worst.

It took three of us, Linda, a nurse and myself to hold Alicia still while the doctor examined her hand trying to find a vein to insert the new IV into. Linda and I did our best to calm Alicia down by singing to her, and it seemed to work for a bit, but the doctor was just taking FOREVER. She couldn't find a vein.

Eventually, she asked the nurse to get a light so she could shine it into Alicia's hand and so she could find a vein. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, or a few minutes, depends on who's counting, the doctor found a vein that could possibly work.

Oh, you should have seen the thrashing that ensued. Oh, man. I thought giving Alicia medicine the sleep medicine was bad. Her crying and bucking only got worse as I watched with trepidation as the doctor gingerly inserted the needle into Alicia's hand. It was horrifying, Alicia cried out in pain and fought tooth and nail trying to get her arm free from the pain that I can only imagine she was experiencing. Finally, I saw the needle go in, and thinking the worse was over, I breathed slightly, only to notice that the doctor started to pull the needle out and then insert it again. In and out, in and out she went several times, all the while Alicia's crying her head off. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore when I could tell that the doctor was having trouble. I finally, said, "Can we please take a break? PLEASE!"

The doctor, seeing the strain in our eyes and knowing the stress that Alicia must have been going through, kindly agreed, and said, sure let's take a break.

I couldn't pick Alicia up and get out of that room soon enough. I was doing my best to calm Alicia down, while seething at what I viewed as complete incompetence on the part of the doctor. (For those of you in the medical field, you'll excuse my nasty comments at this point. I realize that the doctor is a very intelligent woman, and she's doing her best, but as a father, I am PISSED OFF.) I walked down the hall with Linda who at this point had taken Alicia into her arms to comfort her, and out of earshot of the doctor, I just started to mumble to Linda.

"Are you kidding me? What is she doing?! I mean, really? In and out and in and out with that needle. And don't you know that if you're working with an infant, that you cannot take your sweet time trying to find a vein?" I decided that if it was at all possible, that I would not let them do that to her again. So I went over to the doctor, and I asked her if we really, really needed to insert an IV? Couldn't we just use the old one?

She said that the old one was damaged, and therefore was no good, and that since we were going to be here for one more day, at least, that they needed to insert an IV for Alicia's sake. She also assured me that they had called another doctor who was more experienced to help with the insertion. So I relented, and said, all right, well, let's try again.

When Linda saw the new doctor she said, "Oh, this is the doctor who helped to take care of Alicia last year when she was in the Sick Baby Room. She's directly under our primary care pediatrician, so she's good." That put my heart at ease . . . until we got back into the examination room.

By now Alicia had calmed down and was nestling in my arms. But once again as soon as I lay her down on the table, she started crying. This time even harder than before, anticipating what was coming next. I literally had to hold Alicia down with force while once again the doctors searched for a vein. It was pure torture for both Alicia and for Linda and I. Finally she found a vein, and she inserted the needle, once again with lots of struggling and crying from Alicia. But as soon as she got the needle in, she shook her head, the vein had broken under the skin. No good. So out came the needle.

Linda at this point looked at the doctor and said half-jokingly, here, please take my arm, take my blood. I can't bare it anymore. The doctor looked at Linda and smiled with understanding.

They were going to try again, but I asked if I could please just hold Alicia and calm her down for a bit first. They agreed. So I took Alicia out of the room once again.

Once she was calm, we went back into the room to try again for the third time. The first two times, since Alicia's original IV was in her right hand, the doctors were trying to put the IV into her left hand, since they like to alternate hands. However, after seeing that her veins in her left hand were pretty thin, the new doctor decided to try to put it into her right hand again.

However, this would require the removal of the old IV. Oh, man, another battle, but thankfully, not as much as a struggle as the actual insertion of the IV.

Well, after the old IV was out, it was time to try to get a new IV in. And once again, the search for a usable vein began. Unable to find one in her hand, the doctor searched for one in her arm, finally they found a vein that could work, and so they began the prep work.

I'm sure I don't need to mention again that this whole time through the search, the prep, and everything that Linda, the nurse and I are doing the best we can to hold Alicia still, and to keep her from swinging her arms. Our little girl is a fighter, I tell you. She is STRONG. You should have seen the fight that she was putting up.

Seriously, I felt horrible willingly participate in the torture of my daughter. Well, finally the arm was prepped and the moment of truth was upon us. Before, she inserted the needle, I heard the doctor say, OK, this is the last try. So she inserted the needle, while I held my breath, and to my relief, I saw blood start to flow into the needle. She struck gold! Yahoo!

Wait, the doctor is shaking her head. Something's wrong. The vein burst again. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! Now I know that it's in no way the doctor's fault. I'm sure that it was a combination of Alicia's delicate veins and also her thrashing about and using force that burst the vein. But my heart really sank. And I had it. I begged the doctors. I asked them if we could please, please not have to insert an IV.

They asked how she had been eating the past few days, and Linda and I were quick to say, she's been eating great. Really! And besides, her fever medicine and other meds have been administered orally, I reminded them.

After considering for a moment, the doctors were merciful, and said that we could just not insert an IV and see how she did tomorrow. I swept Alicia off of the table seething, and marched back to our room as quickly as I could.

I held Alicia in my arms, but she was still all wound up from the fight, and crying and crying. I felt angry, and sad, and really upset at what had just happened. Linda tried to take Alicia from me to comfort her, and I snapped and said, "I'm fine!" Sorry, honey. Linda just laughed and said, that she thinks her wanting to hold Alicia was more for her comfort than Alicia's. So I passed Alicia over to her, who calmed down right away. Linda really is Alicia's source of comfort for sure.

Alicia dug her head into her Mom's shoulder and just nuzzled her little face in for comfort. Every once in awhile, she'd peak up from her shoulder to see if I was still there, and I looked into her sad eyes feeling like my heart had been wrung out.

I was simmering with anger, and started pacing about trying to pack myself up to prepare to go home. All the while ranting and asking why in the world we were still in the hospital. I felt that what we had just gone through was completely unnecessary. Alicia really didn't seem that bad in my eyes. Why were we even there?

I mean in the end, I had to admit that with all that has happened, it is better for Alicia to be 100% better before we get discharged, but it was just hard!

As I said on Facebook, earlier, if I never have to see my child ever get pierced or pricked with a needle again it will be too soon.

Hoping that Linda and Alicia are resting peacefully now. Tomorrow is a new day. And I hope our LAST day in the hospital EVER!

72 hours continued

OK... so here we go part 2 of the epic story. =D Don't you love my dramatic flair?

First, to answer the question that I'm sure many of you have on your minds? Is it Meningitis? ... Thankfully, no!

Here's how we got to that conclusion.

So last I left off, we all went to sleep exhausted after a long day of hospital visits.

The next morning, we all woke up after not really resting solidly throughout the night. The doctor came in to check in on Alicia around 9:00 and told us that he wants to schedule Alicia for a brain scan later that morning in order to rule out any abnormalities in brain function. This scan would be different from the sonogram in that it would measure brain waves and not just show a picture of her brain.

Also, knowing that the ophthalmologist had some concerns over Alicia's eyes, he also ordered a test done that would measure on a neurological level how well her eyes were transmitting signals to her visual receptors. Both tests would be done that day.

Now, what you just read, I hope seemed pretty coherent. Very different from my state when the doctor was talking to me. When the doctor, spoke I did NOT get all that information at all. All I knew was that she was going to get some sort of test done sometime during the day. In fact, I find that a lot of times when doctors speak, it's only in processing back the information that I really understand everything that they were saying to me.

Anyway, so back to the tests. Both of these tests involved putting Alicia to sleep, so about half an hour after the doctor left, a nurse came in and gave us a dosage of sleep medicine to give to Alicia orally. Simple enough, right? NOT.

This medicine apparently is really bitter and kids really dislike the taste of it. Linda has had a lot of experience with this medicine, since she had to on two prior occasions give Alicia the same medicine to put her to sleep for a couple of auditory tests done earlier in the year. Knowing Alicia's reaction to taking this medicine, it was with dread that we faced the task of feeding it to her.

Knowing that the medicine was really horrid tasting and that Alicia wouldn't like it, we asked the nurses if they had any kind of syrup or sugar to help the medicine go down. (Anyone humming Mary Poppins?) The nurse matter of factly told us no, they didn't, as if it wasn't their concern how we got the medicine down Alicia's throat.

Well, we took a deep breath, and decided to try our best. Oh, man, you should have seen Alicia's reaction as soon as she saw the medicine. We could barely get a drop in, so I told Linda to go downstairs to a coffee shop or somewhere to see if we could get some syrup. So she left, and I sat there with Alicia trying to figure out how to get this medicine into her.

That's when the nurse came in. She saw me struggling and asked me where Mom was. And I said she went to get some sugar. The nurse looked at me and said, "There's not enough time. The test is at 10:30 and it was already 10:00. We need her sound asleep for the test. Give me the medicine, I'll help you."

Oh, man, what happened next was a scene straight out of a horror movie. You should have seen Alicia kicking and screaming and thrashing about as I held her head and body still as the nurse dropped the medicine down her throat. Wow. You would have thought we were burning her alive, the way that Alicia was reacting. I felt like a horrible man for willingly participating in the "torture" of my daughter.

Well, as soon as we got the medicine down, in comes Linda with the syrup. Too late honey.

We thought we would maybe give Alicia some of the sugar to wash the taste out of her mouth. She would have none of it. We ended up dropping most of the sugar on our bed and just giving up on the endeavor.

Eventually, Alicia fell asleep in my arms, and it was time for us to bring her down for the test.

Oh, man. Another battle. Alicia is a very sensitive girl and quite aware of her surroundings. We brought her into the testing room, and as soon as we layed her down on the bed, she would awake and start crying. So we picked her up to calm her down and get her back to sleep. As soon as she was asleep, we would try again. Again, as soon as her body hit the bed, she had another crying fit.

The technician felt bad for Alicia, since her eyes were getting all red and swollen from all the crying, so she said, maybe we should just take Alicia back to our room, keep her awake, and then later on in the afternoon, we could bring her back when she was more sleepy.

So we picked Alicia up, pushed her IV stand and started walking back to our room. Half way back to our room, we realized that the medicine was really taking effect, and that no matter what we did, Alicia would NOT wake up, so we decided to go back and see if we could try again.

The technician was gracious and allowed us into the room again. Thinking she was fast asleep, we started to lay Alicia down, but once again, she woke up crying. Linda decided to see if her mother's touch could calm Alicia down enough to let her sleep. So she picked her up, rocked her back to sleep, and tried to lay her down. Again, to no avail.

Eventually, what we ended up doing was Linda rocked Alicia to sleep, and then as soon as she was asleep, Linda climbed onto the bed, and lay her down, and then lay on top of her until Alicia calmed down enough to fall asleep. Thankfully, after 30 min of battling with her, Alicia finally fell asleep enough to get the sensors on her head, and finish the test.

Forty-five minutes later, we were back in our room, and Alicia was out like a light on her bed.

We got to rest for a couple of hours, and then we were informed that it was time for Alicia's second test.

I won't go into all the details of the second test, but suffice it to say, we went through the whole ordeal again. At first, we thought we didn't need to give her another dose of the medicine, but as soon as we laid Alicia down on the bed, she woke up and this time she became wide awake. So we had to go through the process of feeding her the medicine, rocking her to sleep and then gingerly putting her down only to have her wake up again.

This time, we decided that when we put her down, we would just let her cry herself to sleep, which thankfully she did. At which point, Linda and I left the room and let the technician do her thing.

This time the test took about 20 minutes, and we were back in our room.

A few hours later, Alicia's doctor who is a specialist in pediatric brain development and neurology came and gave us the results of her test. He told us that there was nothing too abnormal with Alicia's brain function. Praise God. He said of course, because of the brain damage she suffered when she was born, her right brain was not firing at the same rate as her left brain. But he said that was to be expected. And at this point he said it wasn't anything too big to be concerned about.

He said that since all tests came back normal, his diagnosis was that Alicia had the spasms most likely due to the fever. He said that the first 72 hours after an instance of seizure is critical so he wanted us to say in the hospital to monitor Alicia's fever, and also to see if she would have another episode.

As for the eye exam, he explained to us that the test measured how quickly it would take for a signal to go from the eyes to the visual receptors in the back of the brain. He said that for Alicia her results were a few milliseconds off from normal, but that as she grew older this would be barely noticeable, and again nothing he's too concerned about right now.

So thankfully, our Alicia is doing well.

The past few days have been just a lot of resting and sleeping for her, and a lot of us fighting to get medicine down her throat.

But overall it's been a great time of rest, and for the family to be together. Definitely a lot of cuddle time for me and baby girl, which I am enjoying, despite the soreness and crampiness I get in my body after lying in bed for hours at a time.

Praying that Alicia can quickly get this virus out of her body, so that we can all go home and get some proper rest.

Pray with us that Alicia can get well quickly, and that she can go back to being her smiley cheerful self again soon.

72 hours

It has been quite an eventful 72 hours in the Chang family. (I warn you ahead of time that this post might be a little on the long side, so take it in stride.)

It started Wednesday, when we noticed that Alicia was a bit fussier than normal. She wouldn't eat, wouldn't sleep and wouldn't let Linda put her down. At first we thought maybe she was just teething and therefore wasn't feeling well. But by that evening, right before we put her to bed, we realized that she was hotter than usual, and after taking her temperature, we discovered that she had developed a fever.

Somewhere along the line we had heard that belief that kids develop fevers when they're teething, so we thought maybe the fever was just a result of the new teeth coming in. (We found out later that kids do not get fevers when teeth come in.) So we went to bed.

In the morning, Alicia's temperature had gone down, so we thought we were in the clear. We went through our regular morning routine. I went to work, Linda stayed home and took care of Alicia. Around noon, Linda brought Alicia to the office to meet me for lunch, and that was the start of what would be the craziest two days we've had in a long time.

During lunch we noticed that Alicia really had no appetite, and she was more lethargic than usual. We thought maybe again, that she was just not feeling well because of her teeth. So we just let her nap while we ate lunch. After lunch, Linda needed to run an errand, so I took Alicia back with me to the office. While sitting at my desk, Alicia nestled into my chest and just kind of laid there, which is quite unusual for our little ball of energy. Usually when sitting with me, she's pushing herself away from me, trying to get a peak at what Daddy's doing on the computer, or trying to grab something on my desk. But not this time. This time she kind of just laid there in a stupor.

Suddenly, Alicia awoke with a start and started coughing and dry-heaving. Knowing what was coming next, I grabbed the garbage can and positioned her head over it. Thankfully, nothing came out, and she just settled back into my chest. A few minutes later, however, she did it again, this time, she did actually throw up, what I can only guess was her breakfast, since she hadn't eaten anything at lunch.

At that point, I noticed Linda had texted asking me how things were going, and I told her about what had just happened, and so said she was coming back right away.

As soon as Linda got back to the office, we packed our stuff, I shut down my computer, took care of some last minute office business, and we rushed off to the hospital with one of my co-workers who has been sort of a God-mother to Alicia over the past few months.

My co-worker has a son who had several medical conditions when he was younger, so she was on pretty familiar terms with the pediatricians at the hospital that Alicia frequents. This came in real handy when we realized that the pediatrician with clinic hours at that moment was booked solid and without connections there was no way we were going to be able to get in to see him.

Well, when we got to the hospital, we went straight up to the doctor's office, my co-worker walked right into the office and greeted the doctor, got a pass, giving us permission to get an appointment with him, and booked an appointment to see him that afternoon. Praise God.

After waiting for a few minutes, while he finished up with a patient, we finally went in to see the doctor. We explained her symptoms and after examining her ear, nose and throat, she said that she probably had a slight case of an infection. Nothing to worry about. He prescribed some fever medicine in case she started to burn up again. But said that she should be fine.

We took the opportunity to ask him to look over some of the results of a head sonogram that Alicia had gotten about a month ago. He looked at the scans and said that the PVL (brain trauma) she sustained at birth, was still there, but it looked like it hadn't gotten bigger, so again nothing to worry about. It meant that we would need to be more wary of her motor skills on the left side of her body, and help her to practice those movements as much as possible. But overall, he said nothing to be concerned about, that in time, she would be OK. And he sent us home.

On the way home, as I was holding her, I noticed that her left hand and arm was twitching. Every second or so, her hand would squeeze and her arm would jerk. At first, I thought maybe it was a side effect of being hungry and not eating all day, cause I noticed that she had also been shivering earlier in the day. We got her home, and Linda told me to give her a bath to wash off any germs or bacteria that may have gotten on her from the hospital.

While giving her the bath, I noticed her arm continued to twitch despite me having given her a cracker prior to putting her into the bathtub. So after the bath, while dressing her, I pointed out the twitch to Linda. When Linda saw the twitch she thought it was pretty weird too. So we started praying. I know some of you don't believe in the whole spiritual warfare thing, but I just had a sense that something was off in the spiritual realm, so I just declared the blood of Jesus over my daughter, and I took authority as her father over her body, and cast out any spirits that were not of God in the name of Jesus. After a few minutes of prayer, her arm stopped twitching. 

But then we noticed that Alicia wouldn't look at us when we called out to her. She kept looking over to her left side, and I noticed that her eyes were rolling into her sockets to the point where her right pupil nearly disappeared behind her nose. I went into serious prayer time at that point. And eventually she came out of it.

Still not sure what that was, Linda called my co-worker who had helped us earlier, who called the hospital and talked directly to our doctor, who told us to go right back to the hospital for him to check her out.

So back into the cab we went, and back to the hospital for a second time that day. When we got there, we waited a few minutes, and the doctor admitted us, and examined Alicia. At that point she had returned to normal, so he asked us how long she was twitching for, and said that she had probably had a local seizure. He said the cause of the spasms could be multiple reasons. It could be that because she had a fever, that the fever triggered some misfiring in her brain. Or, he said it could be that some nerves finally connected from her brain to her arm, and so it was now sending new signals causing her to twitch. In any case, he prescribed her some epileptic medicine, which was kind of freaky when we saw that being typed onto the computer. Also, he told us to schedule a brain scan. He told us that unless she had another episode, that we were not to give her the medicine until after the scan, because it would affect the results.

So again, we collected our medicine and went back home. Back home, we tried to settle in a bit. Linda went out to get dinner for us, while I stayed home and took care of Alicia. Again she was pretty much just lethargic and laid in my arms without moving too much. Thinking that she was probably hungry, I tried to feed her a bit of food, at which point she promptly threw up. After throwing up, she went back to lying in my arms and fell asleep. When Linda got home, I put Alicia down on the couch to sleep, so I could eat. Over dinner, I told Linda about  Alicia throwing up, and she naturally was a bit worried and wanted to go back to the hospital. Being American, and also, having been to the hospital twice that day already, I tried to dissuade her. And Linda agreed to just observe her for a bit longer.

Linda, being the loving mother she is, was feeling really anxious about Alicia and her condition. She really wondered whether we needed to go back to the hospital, and was really worried about whether Alicia would be OK. I could tell that she was really just sad and nervous about Alicia's condition. Alicia hadn't really smiled in the few hours since lunch, and Linda said something that I think captures what she was thinking at that time, pretty well. Linda said, "What if we never see her smile and laugh again?"

For some reason, I at that point just felt convinced that Alicia was going to be OK. And Linda asked me if I was scared, and I said, no. Alicia was going to be fine. We as the children of God have authority over sickness, so we needn't worry. We had a God, a Heavenly Father who was in full control, so we didn't need to be anxious. And besides, being anxious wouldn't fix anything. Linda listened and took it in, but still I could tell she wasn't completely at ease.

I mentioned that I hadn't given Alicia any water after she threw up, so we decided to wake her up so we could give her some juice. She seemed OK after the juice, but after a few minutes she threw up again. At which point Linda decided we really needed some people praying for us, so she called some friends. And I could hear her sobbing outside with weariness and concern.

 About a half an hour after the juice, we tried to give Alicia some milk, thinking that she was probably hungry. Again... throw up. This time Linda was convinced we needed to go back to the hospital, so she called our friend again to see what she should do. My co-worker told her just to wait a bit and see what would happen. If Alicia threw up again, then we should go straight to the emergency room.

After hanging up with her, Alicia did in fact give one last heave-ho, so Linda promptly went to our room, packed a suitcase, we called the cab and off we went for our third trip to the hospital in less than 12 hours. While waiting for the cab to arrive at our house, I noticed a change in Linda's demeanor. She became strong and confident. It was almost as if, once we decided we were going to go back to the hospital, God's courage and strength surged into her, and she started taking charge. Which was actually good, because after Alicia's last upsurge, I felt myself just depleted. I was just emotionally drained and was on the verge of tears.

Again, I couldn't help but marvel at God's blessing in allowing us to be on a see-saw and not both be down at the same time.

When we got to the emergency room, we had to wait in line to register Alicia. Finally, we got admitted and got sent to the pediatric section of the ER. We explained to the doctor what had happened that day, with the fever and also the spasms and we asked if we could be admitted. He looked Alicia over and said, sure. He promptly called and got us a room. Reading her reports from that day, he said that she probably just had a virus of some sort, and told us to give her some of the fever medicine that her pediatrician had prescribed earlier. While talking to him I noticed that Alicia's arm was going off again.

At first, I thought maybe Alicia was just moving her arms like she does when she's trying to dissuade someone from touching her, but I noticed that it was twitching in the same way it was earlier. Since our pediatrician hadn't seen Alicia when she was twitching earlier,  I asked the ER doctor if this was considered a spasms/seizure since I wasn't sure if I was just maybe misreading or imagining things earlier. He said that if we held her arm, and it stopped then it didn't count as a spasms.

But when he told hold of her arm, she continued to twitch, so he said, yes. These were definitely spasms, so he told us to give her the medicine that our pediatrician had prescribed. Then he told us to go over to the side and wait, so they could get a blood sample, and insert an IV into Alicia and wait for them to get our room ready. While getting her IV inserted, I noticed that Alicia was once again looking to her left and her eyes did the rolling into her socket thing again, so I know that I hadn't been seeing things earlier. But just as soon as it started, it stopped and Alicia calmed down.

While we were waiting for our room, the ER doctor came over and talked to us some more. He said that judging by the fever and the spasms, one possibility was that she had a case of meningitis. What's that you ask? Well, we had to ask the same question. It's basically, a bacterial infection of the membranes covering the brain. Sounds scary, right? Yeah. Well, he said they needed to run some tests, but seeing her symptoms, it was a possibility.

Of course, I at that point promptly whipped out my cellphone and started researching meningitis. At which point a nurse came and took us up to our room.

We finally got settled into our room, and laid down to get some much needed rest after a long and harrowing day. Little did we know that the next day would be even more tiring.

Since this is getting long, I'll end this story here. And pick it up tomorrow. =D

To be continued . . .