Longest night ever...

My poor, sweet, sad baby :'(

Carolina and I had an awful Saturday night/Sunday morning. Our little girl had been fussy, mildly feverish, and hadn't much appetite for a couple of days, which - as usual - I attributed to teething. I had been sort of giving her ibuprofen and acetaminophen, but not really strictly. Well Saturday night she kept waking up and crying for a couple of seconds then going back to sleep - this happens normally once or twice a night, but that night she was doing it about every half hour. I figured it was because the guys were making a lot of noise and disturbing her. But after they left she kept doing it, although she would always get quiet again I figured I should check on her, mostly because I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep myself with her doing that. When I walked in she sat up and started screaming at me, I felt bad for startling her - but when I went to her I could tell her skin didn't look right even in the dark. I picked her up and she was just burning up. Once I got her out into the light I could see she was bright red. I quickly stripped off her fleece sleepsack and unzipped her fleece jammies... definitely a bad idea to double-fleece her. I gave her more medicine and some cold Pedialyte, but she didn't want too much of it. After checking her temporal temperature, and it registered at 103.5, we called our doctor's number to speak to the on-call nurse, but we were told we'd have to wait about 45 minutes, so we just decided I should take her to the E.R. She was screaming her little head off most of this time, but calmed down in the car. We were checked into the E.R. at midnight, and didn't check out until 5 a.m. Her temperature there was 104 degrees, so they checked her over, gave her some ibuprofen and started monitoring her heart and oxygen levels. Pretty quickly they decided to get a blood and urine sample - these were the worst parts for me, especially the catheter - it was pure torture for her and for me to have to hold her down while she's shaking and screaming and begging me with her eyes to stop it. Not to mention it took forever for the nurse to get the needle in her tiny little vein so they could draw blood. Between the time we arrived and that point her heart rate had jumped from 120 to 180, which made sense since she was so upset - but while we were waiting for the labs to come back she fell asleep, yet her heart rate didn't drop. So next the doctor decided to giver her an I.V. and put some fluid in her. More torture. My poor baby, any time anyone would come into the room she would start screaming and clinging to me and her bunny. Once she fluid started going in she was noticeably feeling better; she was fascinated by the little "cast" they put on her arm to keep the I.V. in and was sort of playing and being silly. Although the labs had come back negative for any infection, and it was clear she was feeling good, her heart rate hadn't dropped much and her temperature was down, but only to 101. The doctor decided to have another bag of fluid pumped into her. Carolina was quite awake at this point, but we snuggled up in the hospital bed together and she and I eventually fell asleep just in time for the x-rays to come back pointing to a mild bronchial infection caused by a virus - thus nothing we could do for it. Once the second round of fluids was in her, her heart was down to 150s-160s and her temp down to 100 degrees. We were given the clear to go. Home at 5, we both went to bed and slept until 11 - we're certainly still recovering though.
Since then Carolina's been on a steady rotation of ibuprofen and acetaminophen so her fever stays under control - but she's so so soo fussy. I know she doesn't feel good, but I don't know how to help her feel better, she's positively clinging to her bunny and paci. Her poor little arm and hand have some nasty bruises from the needles. The last two nights I've gotten sort of panicky when I put her to bed, worrying about if it happens again, having traumatic flashbacks to that night, and wondering what would have happened if I hadn't gone in and checked on her when I did.
We are so thankful to God for allowing the doctor's and nurses to help her get what she needed to be better.