Malia Moore

At 4:30 am my dad had us all packed and ready to go to San Jose. Mom had called Sofia at 1am and told her to be ready to leave by 4:30  for the 6 am ferry! Dad had to stay behind and work. Mom had been giving me Tylenol to reduce my fever every four hours but it was not bringing the fever down all the way.
We got to the ferry in time, the guys on the ferry know us pretty well and are very sweet to me. We stayed below in the car while I had breakfast. We got to Puntarenas around 7:15am. Sofia noticed I had a wet diaper so we pulled over on a side street to give me a quick change. Puntarenas is a shady town, so mom wanted to do a fast job on me! Well that did not turn out as planned because when my mom picked me up after changing me there was poop all over the back seat of the car and it as well gotten on my feeding tube! Ugh! Not good! Mom and Sofia freaked out, and then I was naked again and mom was holding me by my arms outside of the car as Sofia was cleaning up the poop that had gone up my back unnoticed! Needless to say it was a disaster and now mom had to find a place to wash my hose as I was still having breakfast!

Thankfully, there is a florist that my mom knows and he was just opening up his doors when we drove by and let my mom come in and wash and clean my hose. We then went to the gas station to clean the car seat but when we turned off the car and tried to start it again the car battery was dead! My mom asked three men to give her a jump and nobody would help us! Can you believe that? I mean two girls and a baby and no one to help! Go figure! Finally a young man from inside the gas station to help but by that time mom noticed that the lights on the dashboard of the car were back on and by the grace of God the car started miraculously! Back on the road again, but we really did not get to clean the seat so well and poor Sofia sat in the dirty seat! Sorry Sofia!!!! Thank goodness you wore purple pants that day and not beige! 😉

We arrived to CIMA at 9am and had called Maureen back to meet us at the hospital to draw my blood again, I had to be catheterized so that we could run another urine test and they also took a ultrasound of my lower abdomen. The urine test came back and I had an urinary tract infection again! It would take three days for the culture to come back to let us know what type of bacteria it was. Dra. Castro wanted to admit me to the hospital but mom talked her out of it. Mom really did not want to have me back in the hospital and felt like we had caught this infection in time! So we opted for  three days of Rocephin an Intramuscular injection and we started me right away  on a oral antibiotic Augmentin for ten days. My ultrasound came back okay but my fever is still running high and that makes my mom really nervous! I can have seizures more frequently with fever and infection but luckily I did not have any this time. The seizure is what got me into trouble the last time I had an urinary tract infection and is why I had to go on a breathing machine.

That afternoon when we got back to the hotel I had a very high fever, Sofia and mom were bathing me down with cool wash cloths to try and bring my fever down and interchanging Tylenol and Cataflam every four hours. Nothing really seemed to help. Mom and Sof were very worried and were reconsidering taking me back to the hospital. Dra. Castro said we should wait and give the fever a good 1.5 hours for it to start to go down.  It was some very tense moments in the hotel room battling this fever! But guess what? We conquered it!!! The fever began to break and I finally began to sleep. There I was comfortable, naked and laying on the bed finally going to sleep after what seemed like hours of painful fever. Mom got up and went into the kitchen to begin washing bottles and Sofia stayed by my side. It is now 4:45pm and the rain has slightly began to fall. The next thing you know,,, a deep low grumble begins to shake the very walls of the hotel. The bottles on top of the fridge begin to shake and the chairs at the kitchen table begin to fall over. Mom not knowing much about earthquakes was not so sure as to what was going on. The next think you know I am being yanked out of bed by Sofia and she has tossed me over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes and is running out the door. Mom yells I think this is an earthquake and Sofia says yes get outside with us! So there we are, a bit shaken by the excitement  and me bummed of having to be woken up from finally a good sleep! It was a mere 5.9 earth quake on the Richter Scale. All of Costa Rica felt it. Mom called my grandparents and dad back in Delicias and they too felt it as well! Just another day in our crazy world!

The following morning we left the hotel and went to CIMA for my last shot. We found out on Saturday morning that the bacteria that the lab had cultured was E-Coli. A common bacteria found in urinary tract infections, the good news was that the antibiotics I was taking was  sensitive to the bacteria and should have already begun to kill it off.

I am so glad to be going home and now I can get to spend some time with Pa Pa Shroyer, and Gammy! I still don’t feel so good, but I know I will be feeling better soon as soon as these antibiotics kick again. We made the ferry in plenty of time and arrived home by 5pm. I have to go back to San Jose in ten days to have another urine test done and make sure the bacteria is gone.

Thanks for all the prayers,

Malia 🙂

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 24th, 2011 at 4:21 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.