Being Sick Stinks!

So, you guys knew this post was coming.  December started off great and ended great, but the middle was not so great.  In fact, for Ian and I it was one of the scariest times we have ever been through.

It all started the morning after the preschool concert and trip to see the lights.  We had such a good night, but at 5 o'clock in the morning we woke up to Evan screaming that his neck hurt.  He had also spiked a fever.  We gave him some Tylenol and called a doctor.  By the time we got off the phone, he was feeling better, so we just decided to watch him.  He really didn't fall back asleep but was feeling better.  Then, at about 9am he said that his neck was hurting again.  We called the doctors again and while we were on the phone we noticed that Evan had a huge swollen knot on one side of his neck.  That was it, we were off to urgent care.

By the time we got there, Evan wasn't feeling good at all.  His fever was back and his neck really hurt him.  He couldn't really turn his head and he didn't like to be picked up at all.  We talked to the urgent care doctor.  He checked Evan out and gave him a strep test which came back negative.  The doctor said he didn't quite know what was going on so they sent us on the UNC Emergency Room.

In the car on the way to the ER Evan was really bad.  When I would turn the car, he would scream because the movement hurt his neck so bad.  I was really worried.  He was getting bad fast.  Once we arrived at the ER we had to sit in the waiting room for about an hour-watching Sponge Bob on TV and listening to people cough and splutter around us.  Finally, they admitted us and took us into a room.  We watched more TV and spent lots more time waiting.

Finally, doctors and nurses started passing through.  They did some blood work, and looked at Evan.  My poor little boy fought them tooth and nail because he hurt so much whenever anyone fussed with him.  The worst was when one of the doctors tried to look in the back of his throat.  It was a battle, but we finally convinced Evan to open his mouth.  They also decided they needed to do a CAT scan to see what was going on inside Evan's neck, so they took our bed with me in it and wheeled us down to the machine.  At that point Evan had to lay on me because he was too uncomfortable any other way.  It was really tricky to get him to lay down for the scan because it hurt for him to lay down flat.  6 hours later, they decided that Evan had an infection in his lymph node.  They gave him one dose of IV antibiotics and sent us on our way with a prescription for more.

Once we got home Evan was still not feeling good.  He slumped on the couch and refused to eat anything.  His fever was climbing.  We decided to just leave him on the couch to sleep because he needed to be propped up.  Ian and I pulled a mattress down onto the floor next to him and spent the night down there with him.  He was fussing and whimpering all night long.  At one point his fever was up to about 104 and he was commenting that "the world was upside down".  It was a scary night, but we brought his fever back down and called the doctor again in the morning.

That morning we went to see our pediatrician Dr. Pickens.  Evan seemed to be feeling a little better, but he refused his antibiotic because as the doctors had warned us-it tasted terrible.  So, Dr. Pickens switched us to a combination of two better tasting antibiotics-a sulfa drug and a penicillin-based one.  Those two together were supposed to cover everything that the other one covered.  We went back home and attempted to give Evan those.  By that point, he firmly believed that everything that came out of a syringe tasted terrible.  So, he fought those two antibiotics.  Twice that day we managed to get the sulfa antibiotic in him and then the penicillin one after it, but he threw up shortly after both times.  We attributed it to his incredible gag reflex.  However, after the second dose of antibiotics we started to notice a rash on his legs and we were headed back to the pediatrician.

By then, Evan was having to stand outside the doctors office and throw up in the bushes before we walked in, poor guy.  At first Dr. Pickens thought he had hives, a reaction to one of the medications.  So, we decided to switch him to a third antibiotic which would have to be injected at the office.  Oh, he really liked that one.  Right before we left we noticed that the rash was spreading to his hands, feet, mouth, and throat.  Our guess at that point was that he had contracted Hand, Foot, and Mouth disease in the ER and had another separate virus.  Oh goody.

So, we went home and slept better.  However, by the middle of the day on the next day, his rash was worse, his lymph node was red and inflamed outside the boundaries of where it was a few days before, and his fever was still there.  Dr. Pickens conferred with us, left the room to call the specialists at UNC, and then said we had to go back to the ER to talk with the infectious disease specialist.  At that point, he was concerned that Evan might have had Kawasaki disease.

So, we headed back to the UNC Emergency Room.  This time, they knew we were coming so we headed immediately back to the ER triage area.  While Evan was acting and feeling better at that point, his infection was actually at its worst.  They did some more blood work, put him on another IV antibiotic at a REALLY high dose, and admitted him so they could keep an eye on him and really attack the infection with the antibiotics.  Plus, at that point, he couldn't take any food in because of the sores in his mouth so he needed the IV for nourishment.

After waiting for quite a few more hours we headed up to our room on the 7th floor of the Children's Hospital.  One nice thing happened on the way up to our room, the nurse that had been with us in the ER turned to us and said, "You know, I have seen a lot of parents in the ER, and I just wanted to tell you that you are good parents."  I don't know if he says that to everyone, but it certainly was nice to hear, especially at that moment.

We settled in to our room and Ian went home to hang out with Ben and my wonderful mom-in-law that had headed up to help us out.  Plus, by that point it was almost midnight.  That whole night was a blur of exhaustion and scariness to me.  I was on the hard couch trying to sleep.  People kept coming in and measuring things and changing IV's.  Evan kept waking up screaming for one reason or another.  He was scared about where he was, his feet were itchy from the rash, he had to go to the bathroom (which was not easy with the IV), or he was really feverish.  So, we cranked the air conditioning on high.  I lay in the bed in the dark freezing and worrying about Evan.  It was one of those nights where I was so glad when the sun came up.

Over the next couple of days Evan kept getting better little by little.  The swelling was way down in his neck even by the next morning.  The rash in his throat was going away, but they really couldn't tell what was causing the rash.  His fever kept lingering.  Finally, we noticed that his rash would tend to come back when he had a new dose of the IV antibiotics.  The final verdict in the hospital was that every time they were giving a dose of antibiotics the bacteria would get shocked and flood his system.  They figured that was causing the rash, so we went with that.

He continued to get better, and he got well enough to try another antibiotic orally so we could go home.  By that point, we had been there a couple days and hung on through the kindness of our friends.  Margarette, Scott, Kara, Mark, Bob, and Liz our wonderful friends helped keep us sane by bringing us food, gifts from preschool, and just keeping us company (because one can only watch so much Nick Jr.!)  I am more grateful than I can say to all of those friends for helping us out through a really scary time.  Ian would stop by in the mornings to let me have a shower and talk to the doctors.  They he would come check on us in the evenings.

Finally, we decided that Evan would not take medication through a syringe.  So, we were going to try crushing it up and putting it in some chocolate pudding.  We at first tried applesauce, but Evan threw a fit, so we tried the pudding and it went right down.  So, the pudding stayed down, the rash was going away, the fever was down, so they were ready to let us go home.  Evan was bouncing off the walls literally.  However, when the doctor was finally walking up with the papers to let us go home, Evan decided to drink to much apple juice on a full stomach from lunch and bounce around on the sofa, so he threw up just as the doctor walked in.  Of course, we didn't quite know if the throwing up was a reaction to the antibiotic, so we had to stay another 4 or 5 hours through another dose.  Finally we were on our way home.

It was such a relief to get home, but of course, I kept worrying about Evan.  Over the next couple of days, the rash seemed to come and go, but we keep persevering with the pudding antibiotics.  Finally, of course on the day we were supposed to go to Texas for Christmas, Evan's rash got really bad.  So, we headed back to the doctor's office.  Since our regular doctor was off, there was a new doctor looking at us.  She took one look at Evan and concluded that it was a drug allergy to the penicillin that he was taking.  So, she switched him to yet another antibiotic that he would have to take via syringe, and we headed off to Texas keeping our fingers crossed.  Fortunately for us, the antibiotic continued to work and he wasn't allergic to this one.

On New Years Day he finished his last dose of antibiotics.  He looks and acts completely well.  I can't say that I'm not worried.  I think I will be worried for a good long time to come, but I'm so thankful to have gotten through everything, thankful to have my little boy healthy and I'm looking forward to a little more relaxing and healthy start to 2013!

*Thanks for reading...this was a little hard to write, but it was also something I needed to do.

(The first time we took Evan home from the ER with permanent marker lines outlining his swollen lymph node.)

(The second time we went to the ER-you can see how the infection had spread.)

(The rash on Evan's back)

(The rash that kept appearing on Evan's legs with each dose)

(The hospital playroom once we were feeling better)

(the rather nice view of UNC from our window)

(He's feeling better and munching on chocolate.)

(Ok, so now he's ready to go home!)