Sunday, April 5, 2009

The scare of our lives!

This rates right up there with Lily's birth, Sydney eating the bloodpressure pill, and Lucas getting sick in the NICU.

Saturday morning, I woke up and as usual, some of our kids had joined us in our bed. Gerald was already awake and downstairs. I looked over and Lily had taken her shirt off in the night because she got hot. Lula is just a tiny thing and you can see every bone in her body. Well, she had her arm stretched up over her head and from way across our king-sized bed, I could see a lump just a few inches below her armpit. First, I felt it, and it was surely a lump, not a bug bite or scratch or anything else. Then I flew out of bed and ran downstairs. Gerald was sitting there in the chair and immediately said, "did you see that lump on Lily's side?" Ok, now I knew that this wasn't all a bad dream. I told him I was taking her straight in. So, I somehow managed to get a hold of the people at JCP to let them know I wouldn't be in to work, and in my panic, I vaguely recall getting dressed, putting my contacts in, and getting clothes on Lily. I got pulled over on my way out of housing for using my cell phone while driving and the poor gate guard, he must have been able to read my face because all I said was, "I'm on my way to Urgent Care." and he was like, "go go go, I'll tell them you need to go."

We got to Urgent Care and first we saw the nurse that takes vitals and all that good stuff. She felt it and said that the fact that it moves was a good thing. BTW, my 2lb 10oz baby is now a whopping 43lbs! I don't know where those 43lbs are, because she is skin and bones! Anyway, we then saw the PA and he said the same thing the nurse said, he didn't think it was anything to worry about because it moves (we'd be much more concerned if it didn't move because tumors usually attach themselves to something), but he wasn't sure that it was just a swollen lymph node either, so he wanted the Doc to see it as well. A very nice woman Dr came in and she felt Lily's neck and said she could feel her lymph nodes there as well and the lump and she said that while she can't be certain, she's pretty sure it's just an infected lymph node due to all of the illness we've had in the last few weeks. I'm not sure if I mentioned it in all of my posts, but Lily did get hit pretty hard with all of it. She did both Strep and the puke bug. She also said that seeing swollen lymph nodes in children in the armpit area wasn't very common. So, we are treating it with antibiotics, watching to see if it goes down, making sure more lumps don't appear, and praying that it's gone in a week or two. If not, we will be getting it evaluated further.

I am still worried about it and it consumes my thoughts pretty frequently, but I'm holding on to the fact that it moves and it seems to fit the description the Dr gave us. I will keep y'all updated!

P.S.
Now that we are all healthy so to speak, I will get pictures up this week for my birthday babies! I promise!