The thing about being a pediatric nurse...is you know just enough to make you paranoid. That's right I'm paranoid. We laugh when nurses on our unit get pregnant because you know just how neurotic they will be while pregnant. I pediatric hospital is not where you want to be when you're pregnant. You are painfully aware of everything that can go wrong. You are aware that those tiny percents they quote in pregnancy books are actually possible. You see the kids with diseases that are 1 in 1 million. And all you can do is hope and pray for a healthy child. In that way you are just like every other mother. The difference is you know what realities are ahead of you, if things don't go as planned. Now to be fair, we see worst case scenarios. There are a lot of children born at 28 weeks who grow up to be completely healthy individuals. Those just aren't the ones I get to see on a day to day bases. And if you ask the parents of most children on our unit, they love there child just the way they are, and would not do anything to change there child.
That being said I am still paranoid. Everett fell off the couch at three months when I leaned over to get a cloth to clean up spit up. I cried and cried and cried. He did not. I wanted to take him to emergency. I was determined I had accidently given my baby a head injury like shaken baby. The truth is NO baby will ever suffer shaken baby from rolling off the couch...it's just not physically possible. Ask any Dr. I knew this but yet I was determined I had just traumatically injured my child. See I'm paranoid. I am trying to get better...Everett recently fell down a couple of stairs, I did not cry, I just watched checked his pupils every couple hours for three days :)
So recently Everett was sick with Gastro. It sucked but that's life, toddlers will get sick. I probably bring home enough germs from the hospital that he will have complete immunity by age 3. Im surprised he's not sick more often. My son does not live in a bubble. During his illness and immediately after Everett started getting blue lips. Each time would last around 5 minutes. He is not in any distress, he is not panicking and he is not lethargic. There does not seem to be anything that coincides with each time he gets blue lips...it just happens. His cap refill is good although his fingers are cold to touch. His temperature is 37.2. He is always indoors and well dressed. He remains happy through out the episode. And I have no idea why it's happening. Yet surprisingly this I am not paranoid about. This I am not freaking out over. Maybe because my child appears to healthy to be sick. Maybe Im afraid of the other options. Maybe Im to afraid to be paranoid. Or maybe I just somehow know he's okay.
I brought him to our family Dr. I had to sneak him in :) But she agreed to see him, because blue lips aren't normal. After doing a full assessment and not finding any obvious cause, she asked me straight on "Knowing what you know, how do you feel about this?" and I was able to calmly and honestly say "I don't think it's anything to be concerned with, but I needed you to know, I needed someone else to have this information, just in case Im wrong." So we still don't have a diagnosis, we probably never will honestly. We are being referred out for a second opinion and Everett needs to get some blood work done. Pretty minor stuff.
But don't worry Im still paranoid that my child might drown in 2 inches of water, or accidently have a TV fall on him, or suffocate on a pillow in his bed...but blue lips I can handle.
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