another UTI?

When you're in the middle of a pandemic, and your daughter starts running a fever, you might be a little concerned!  She had no other symptoms, so my first instinct was that she was probably okay, but you just never know.  There is SO much information out there in the news and on social media with conflicting information, so it's hard to know what's true and what's simply NOT.  

Well, the fever lasted more than 24 hours, so I decided to take her in to see Dr. Joki.  When I made the appointment, they informed me of all the safety precautions and the new protocol when arriving for an appointment.  We were to call from the parking lot and wait to be instructed into the office.  We would enter a certain door (wearing masks, of course), where a nurse would take our temperatures.  We would then go directly to one of the exam rooms and wait for Dr. Joki.

As we climbed out of the car to enter the building, I had to take a picture.  This is such an unusual time, but I figured it should be documented. 

Grandma made us these awesome masks, and I love that Brooke even tried to smile once she noticed that I was taking her picture.  We really do smile with our eyes as well!

Based on her lack of symptoms, I requested that they test for a UTI given her history. Dr. Joki was fine with that, and the sample had traces of white blood cells in it, which could either be normal or cause for concern.  (Not helpful, I know!). He didn't want to prescribe antibiotics until we received the culture back, so my sweet girl had the fever on and off all weekend. She would be fine all morning, get really tired and nap in the afternoon, and then wake up during the night with another fever.  I was trying not to medicate her unless she was uncomfortable because I had read a lot about letting fevers do their thing in fighting off infections, so I mostly gave her Motrin at night when she would wake up crying. 

She was finally fever free by Monday morning and never developed any other symptoms, so I was super confused.  We pushed lots of liquids, so I was assuming that we flushed out the UTI naturally, but the culture came back negative Monday afternoon.  I was totally confused. If it wasn't a UTI, what caused her fever for 4-5 days when she had no other symptoms?

I was, of course, happy that we didn't need antibiotics again, but it was just unusual.  Well, by Thursday, she had a fever again. I took her back to the office to see Julie (Dr. Joki resigned the week prior), and she agreed to start antibiotics while we waited on the culture results.  She also told me that staph was in her first culture a week ago, but nobody ever told me that.  Julie said that sometimes it doesn't mean anything, but it can also indicate a UTI.  This only added to my confusion.

Well, we started the antibiotic and within a day, she was fever free.  She still seemed more tired than usual and didn't have much of an appetite, but at least she wasn't feverish.  This was one afternoon that she claims she wasn't tired, she was just "resting her head."

To add to the confusion, the second culture also came back negative.  BUT, whatever she had, the antibiotics cleared it and she hasn't had a fever since. The unknown can be really hard, but I was grateful to have a healthy girl again.  I also questioned whether or not she should have been tested for COVID-19, but the office informed me that they only test children who are admitted to the hospital.  So, there was really no way to know if she had it or not.