Parents, trust your instincts!

I wanted to share with you what our family has gone through this past week in hopes of helping someone else. I'll just put this here in case you want to skip the rambling I'm about to drop below:Tl;dr- my daughter (6mo) was acting lethargic, the hospital tried to brush it off. I insisted something was wrong and it turns out she had a life threatening infection.So let's go back to earlier this week. My daughter just started daycare on Wednesday, going half days to ease into it. My mother in law picked her up Friday and said she was feeling very hot. At first I didnt think much of it and attributed it to her first daycare illness; her brother was sick all the time when he first went. Then my MIL send me a video of my daughter laying in the pack n play just staring into space. I instantly knew something was wrong as shes usually very active and bubbly. I flew out the door of my work to take her to the doctor. When I got to my MILs house she was just moaning, not crying, but groaning. She was also blinking very strange like her head was in pain. It turned out our pediatrician closed for the day already (even though it was 2:30, wtf doc?) so I just drove her straight to the pediatric hospital nearby.When we got there they said she did have a fever of 102 and appeared congested. I told them , I dont care about the congestion I'm very worried about her lethargy and her weird slow blinking she is doing. The nurse insisted she was just acting like that because of her fever. They suctioned her throat because she was drooling significantly and had some mucus, gave her tylenol and told me she must have RSV. I told them shes already had RSV months ago but they insisted and they sent us home.Saturday went by in a blur as she had high fevers that wouldnt go down with ibuprofen and tylenol on rotation. I took two showers with her to help bring the fever down. I kept reassuring myself that this was normal for a viral infection and it would get better in a few days.Sunday we had some family get together for Easter and my daughter took a turn for the worse. She slept the entire time and when she was awake, she stopped wanting to move. She wouldnt turn her head and look at me, she wouldn't move her arms. She also stopped eating and peed only 1 time the entire day. I was terrified, I told my husband we were leaving right then to go back to the hospital. As we were leaving my FIL pointed out her neck seemed swollen.Once we arrived at the ER we were taken back right away. When they came in they said "you were here Friday right for her cough?" I said "no she actually never had a cough but the nurse insisted he knew her better than what my concerns are". She could immediately tell I was very stressed and upset and asked me to tell her everything that was going on. She said she would give her some tylenol and IV hydration and see how she was doing because she felt her lethargy was due to dehydration. I told her absolutely not and asked her to please just humor me and check her blood.They blood test came back showing a WBC count of 31,000 and her inflammation markers were high. The doctor said it was highly unlikely to be caused by a virus and she most likely had a bacterial infection so we would be admitted.They ended up doing an xray of her neck which was inconclusive so they did an ultrasound which showed the swelling. The ultimately decided to do a CT scan and said the risk was less than the risk of them missing an infection.After the CT scan we got a final diagnosis. My daughter has a retropharyngyl abcess which is essentially a pocket of infection between her airway and her spine. For her age it's incredibly rare and could require surgical drainage if the IV antibiotics shes on dont reduce it. We will be here for the week.Parents please please trust your instincts! You know your kid better than anyone. Dont let someone tell you something is fine when you know it's not. I'm kicking myself for not standing up for her Friday. If you feel something is off, fight for what you think is right. It doesnt matter if you come off as a pushy parent, you child is way more important. After this nightmare experience my attitude has changed.Sorry for the formatting I'm on mobile. via /r/Parenting http://bit.ly/2LfnLoM