Getting on track after a hospital stay....

This last week has been a blur! Poor Aliya ended up in hospital with a kidney infection :(  The weekend before we went to the ED at our local hospital as Aliya had developed an kidney infection from one of her many UTI's. Our GP's had been unsuccessful in the last year in treating and getting rid of the recurring UTI's and this time she had become feverish and sore due to it progressing to her kidneys.  So after 6hrs wait we finally saw the hospital GP and we given a script for antibiotics and sent on our way.

But it wasn't going to be as easy as that! They had given us the wrong antibiotics, this strain of UTI was resistant to the antibiotics but the info wasn't passed onto us or our GP for follow up.  So during the week, Aliya wasn't improving but she wasn't really getting any worse, so I thought it would just take a little time for the anitbiotics to work. How wrong was I!!

By Monday Aliya was so sick that I took her to the GP for check up. I couldn't bring down her temps, and she was 38.9 even with panadole! The GP gave us another antibiotic and advised me that if she started throwing up then it would mean an hospital admission!! And of course that evening she did :( Up again to the ED at the local hospital, which was so busy with emergency patients that there was only one doctor working the ED room. We waited til 4am to be seen then at 6am she was finally admitted to the children's ward. By the time I headed home I had been up for 37hrs straight. I was sooooooo tired I felt as though I had a hangover!

I have to tell you that Aliya is one BRAVE little kid!! As this was her 1st time in hospital, the thought of having needles and an IV was freaking her right out (even though she has seen me with IV's in the past and I assured her that they weren't that bad). The docs and I talked her through the process and she gripped Sprinkles, her favourite teddy, tightly to her face so that she didn't have to look at the needle. The docs were great, very kid friendly and after 2 attempts had the IV in place. One little tear rolled down her face. My heart was breaking but I knew that this was for the best. That was the easy bit (seeing the nurses flush it during her stay and having her cry in pain because it had stuck was so sad!)

It was suspected that she would need a 5 days of IV antibiotics, but she responded so well we were able to come home after 3 days on IV antibiotics.

So we are now home, with 7 days of antibiotics, and a course of a bladder relaxant medication to help retrain her bladder. Its suspected that she has had recurring UTI's for years as she has had issues with staying dry throughout the day, but trying to get GP's to take your concerns seriously is like pulling hens teeth!!!

Aliya will need a long term antibiotic plan to keep the UTI's at bay and also a DMSA scan, where a radioactive substance is injected to be able to scan the kidneys to look for permanent kidney damage.

But I'm so glad that she is getting better. And the best thing is that she hasn't wet herself since getting out of hospital, and for a social active 8 yr old girl, this is BIG news :)

Oh and Aliya experienced a touch of fame, the local school was giving out daffodils and the local newspaper was there to take photos :)