Gracie's Illness - The Beginning

Gracie was 3 years and 4 months old when she died on November 16, 2009. 

October 7th, 2009 (Gracie's last professional portrait session)

She woke up with a fever in the early hours of October 22nd; the previous day was spent at preschool (no one was ill there) and she spent that night with her dad.  She was returned to me in the morning on October 23rd.  I took her the walk-in clinic at our family doctor's office and they told me to give her pedialyte to help her from becoming dehydrated.  I called up the nurses on the pediatric floor of our hospital, because they were very famililar with Gracie and the fevers/dehydration when she was ill.  They told me to give her 30ml of pedialyte every 30 minutes, and that was the minimum amount to give to keep her from dehydration.  I did this every 30 minutes with a syringe; Gracie did not take anything very well orally because of aversions that she had.  I hated doing it but it needed to be done to help my little girl.  Later in the day, I drove to Duncan (45 minutes away) to try to let her have a sleep; she would not sleep at home and was quite unhappy and not herself.  She did fall asleep, and we were able to pick up her portraits that we had done about 3 weeks earlier.  She would not take any of her PediaSure at all, so she wasn't getting any nutrition.  She had no energy at all and just wanted to cuddle. 
On the Saturday, Gracie seemed to be still ill but I thought that it was looking better.  She had a bit more energy and was back to cruising the furniture and being more of herself again.  She even drank about 6oz of her PediaSure; I really thought she was on the mend.  By the evening, she was losing her energy and becoming ill again.  She fell asleep on the living room floor at 7pm and I carried her off to bed.  However, Jasmine woke up at 10pm and woke up Gracie.  I tried everything but could not get her to fall back asleep.  She just lay with me moaning and groaning.  After everyone else went to bed, I made a bed of blankets and pillows on the living room floor and planned for Gracie and I just to remain in the living room for the night.  I tried sleeping on the couch while she layed down beside me.
She slept off and on, 20 minutes each time at most.  For most of the night, she rolled around back and forth moaning and groaning.  I tried to lay down with her and cuddle her to sleep, but she just couldn't settle at all.  I put on the tv quietly for her, tried music stations, and other "quiet" channels; I even put on "In The Night Garden" at 2:30am because was her favorite show.  Nothing made a difference; Gracie just moaned and groaned.  I was still continuing to syringe the Pedialyte in to her, and giving her ibuprophen/acedeminiphine throughout the night.
I think around 5:30am, she drifted off for a little while maybe for about 2.5 hours.  Our home woke up though, and because we were sleeping in the living room we were awaken.  John thought that I should take her up to the hospital and have her checked out, but I was pretty sure that her illness was no different than any prior.  I really wanted to just combat the fever with the advil and tylenol and keep giving her the fluids and avoid the hospital stay.  Gracie did not like nurses or doctors, or anyone for that matter, coming near her and poking and proding.  I didn't like to see Gracie upset, all I wanted was to make her feel better and avoid upsetting her further.
It was probably about noon by the time that John got me to agree to go.  I got Gracie ready, and took her back to the walk-in clinic.  I knew that most of the doctors at the clinic knew Gracie and the issues that she got with fevers, and that we would just get a direct-admit to the hospital instead of having to sit in emergency half the day and half the night.  We did get the direct admit and Gracie was put back on to the pediatric floor at NRGH.  The date was Sunday, October 25th.