Childhood Illnesses - UTI
UTI is short for urinary tract infection, or simply, bladder infections. Anyone can get a bladder infection, not just infants, and it has various causes. Here is what the Sears doctors have to say about it. It can move up from the bladder, becoming more serious as it reaches the kidneys.
How Sara Ellen got it I don’t know. The only reason we knew anything was wrong was her reoccuring/persistant fever. At Dr. Schneider’s request I scheduled an ultrasound for Wednesday morning. He also prescribed an antibiotic. One of the side effects was vomiting, but she couldn’t keep anything down. Thank goodness she only gets breastmilk. Besides not liking the medicating process, we could barely get a drop in her before she gag and sometimes immediately vomit. No fun, for baby or parents. 
We tried it until Tuesday evening, calling Nighttime Pediatrics and the nurse said not to push it. The next day the doctor prescribed amoxicillian. She still doesn’t really like the medicating process but after she gets over that, we have our normal happy baby back, and her internal systems are getting back to normal (lots of diaper changing 8O).
Wednesday I took her in for the ultrasound. The appointment person said to push fluids and keep them in her, like I can control that. When we arrived, I asked if I should feed her more and was told she should not have eaten in the last two hours. Sheesh. I had to undress her (I think she’s getting wise to doctor’s and undressing meaning something unpleasant) so she was all bare in this cool room and had the ultrasound thingy with cold blue jelly pushing into her belly, sides, and back. The technician wanted her bladder empty so left and came back a few times to check but no luck. 
I think since her reaction to the original prescription, she’s been dehydrated. As I said, her systems are going back to normal, she’s starting to drool again.
It’s a good thing we got insurance this month, she and I have both been to a doctor a few times. (I’m still getting back to normal.)
I heard back from her doctor and there is nothing bad in her kidneys, yay :D, so the new prescription is killing off the bad bacteria.
My (just had a birthday this month) 3-year-old niece Haley is having issues with UTI stuff too, recently so it has been a big issue within the family for about 2-3 months. I have found that the nurses we dealt with were completely harsh and uncaring, which I thought was pretty uncommon, but every one of them almost seemed assuasive, like “did you teach her proper hygiene?” and my sister-in-law was like “Sure I did, but she’s 2 1/2 so no matter how well I taught her doesn’t mean she is going to wipe perfectly 100% of the time” (my SIL is an occupational therapist so it’s not like she’s a lazy parent or a dummy by any means, which was totally what the nurses where implying with the tone of their voices and the cock to their eyebrows). I think their attitudes made the whole experience so much worse than it needed to be. It was horrible for Haley, when she had to have an ultrasound it wasn’t the “over the tummy with gel” it was the very unpleasant pelvic ultrasound, in instead of on top of the body, which they didn’t even TELL my SIL they were doing so it was a shock to everyone! I just thought it was so unprofessional; they should have prepped both mother and daughter for that. They also very abruptly said that they were going to put in a catheter
poor Haley, it has just been crazy. The whole UTI situation seems to be fairly common, so it seems like they should have some sort of knowledge of treating their patients with patience and respect?!?
You sound like an excellent Parent!
Anyway, best of luck with nipping it in the bud and YAY for ingenious methods of dosing out medicine
Yikes! I think we were told ahead of time about the catheter test at Nighttime Pediatrics. It didn’t make it anymore pleasant but the nurses there were wonderful, they even checked up on her several times over the week.
I don’t know if her pelvic ultrasound was different than Sara Ellen’s (the first place the tech did was her pelvis) but she was nice enough though not quite as much as the NP nurses. I just had this vision of her not wanting me there but when we got started it would have been impossible for her to do the scanning and hold my baby down. My mom said when I was 2 and had x-rays taken before finger surgery I was really upset and the techs were confused because they “weren’t hurting [me]” and Mom informed them that they were scaring me. She hadn’t been with me originally.
Without being too graphic, the “pelvic’ ultrasound is a penetration type of ultrasound dunno if you had to do that too or not, but it was very scary for Haley
(probably more weird if you are old enough to have been taught that nothing is supposed to go there type of thing)
I have only heard good things about NTP nurses
which is great because we have one of those up here too, but the Nurses Haley had were completely frazzled and acted like “this could have been prevented” and were just nasty.
I definitely think “being there” is SOOO important. But poor Katie (Haley’s mom) was so distressed about all of it and said ” I can just see her coming to me when she is 20 and saying that she has horrible memories of “someone touching her where they aren’t supposed to” (she was more graphic) and her Blaming me for it!”. We all tried to assure her that wouldn’t be the case, but overall the whole thing is just upsetting. I think it won’t be a big deal, I mean Haley seems better about the check ups now, but I know now that knowing your Babies dr.s “routine” is very important, just so you can prepare everyone for what will be happening.
It sounds like you had a much better experience though!
eeee I wish I had commented on something happier first ! ha!