Friday, September 2, 2011

The Strange Illnesses Continue


Noel wearing 3-D glasses for about 2 seconds at Disney.


Noel has a history of coming down with strange illnesses. This summer has proved no different.

The problem started when I began to notice a skunk-like odor within my house. At first I blamed the newly purchased guinea pigs. It wasn't long before I discovered the unpleasant scent was coming from the urine in my daughter's diapers. Over the period of two weeks, the smell got so bad that one diaper thrown in the kitchen trash would stink up the whole house.

To the doctors we went. I am positive that if they didn't know us so well, they would have thought I was crazy. Noel had no symptoms of any illness. Getting a urine sample is the only way to find out what is going on, but that is not an easy task. Noel can't pee in a cup.

We were sent to the hospital so Noel could be catheterized as an outpatient. Outpatient said "We don't just catheterized people for no reason." UMMMM? I did have a reason. They said I could collect the urine in a bag and proceeded to call up to the lab. Guess what? The hospital lab was out of bags. How does that happen?

To make a long story short, we had to go through the hospital's ER. The doctor in the ER said there was a trace of something, but it wasn't a big deal. This took 4 hours. The next day, the hospital called and said the culture showed the growth of bacteria. The frantic nurse went on to say that I needed to go to the pharmacy and get an antibiotic ASAP. It was late afternoon, so I got the antibiotic and called her pediatrician the next morning to find out exactly what was going on.

The pediatrician called back after receiving Noel's lab work. He informed me that she had a rare bacteria called providencia, which he had to look up because he had never heard of it. Apparently, it is found mostly in burn patients. On top of this news, the doctor said the antibiotic the hospital prescribed is resistant to this bacteria. I had to go back to the pharmacy to get another antibiotic.

I am happy to report that Noel no longer smells me out of the house with her skunk-like diapers. They have returned to normal. Just praying she stays healthy and doesn't continue this pattern of strange illnesses.