Thanksicklings 2013

Oh man, what a time we're having!  We started our trip back to KS for Thanksgiving with one boy with a cough.  Over the course of our visit all three big boys ended up at urgent care clinics and on antibiotics (one diagnosis of an ear infection, one sinus infection, some bronchitis, and plenty of all around crud)  I was so hoping the baby and I wouldn't succumb, but trap us in a car for 15 hours with each other and there's bound to be some germ sharing.  I felt awful Monday night and most of the day Tuesday but turned the corner faster than any of the boys had.  Then yesterday morning baby started coughing. :(  He went downhill quickly.  By that evening he was burning up and I had to wake him to eat (after a 4 hour snooze!).  The fever combined with lethargy in a baby that young is cause for concern so our peds office advised us to head to the ER.  I was already on my way to the hospital when the nurse called me back.  She called ahead and the hospital was expecting us.  When I walked in I thought, oh no here we go.  I have spent my fair share of time in the ER and it is always, always a last resort-hubby is telling me to get up off the floor and go because even he is concerned kind of a situation.  I don't take up space in an EMERGENCY ROOM when I have a cold.  If your child can chatterbox it up with fellow patients and jump off of chairs GET OUT!  Ok, rant over.  But, I was seriously questioning my judgment in going to the closest hospital versus the children's hospital farther away.  The waiting room was full with people chatting, taking smoke breaks outside, and laughing.  Oh, I forgot, if you are laughing in the emergency room, get out!  The screen said the ER wait time was currently 86 minutes.  We actually only waited about 10 minutes to get back to triage where I was glad they seemed to share my concern about pumpkin's high fever.  We went straight from there to the pediatric section of the ER.  I was surprised and very happy to find that they had a separate peds area where they already had a room ready for us after getting that phone call from the doctor's office.  The two nurses were wonderful throughout the 4 hours we spent there.  They wanted to do lab work to rule out some more serious conditions like RSV and the flu.  Which meant urine and blood and mucous samples.  We both cried our way through that awful ordeal.  All his labs were negative so we came home to ride out this nasty virus (in all likelihood it's the same virus we've all been sick with but it is much, much more terrifying to feel your tiny infant's skin burning up against your chest than it is to put your toddler to bed early because his fever is making him mean and cranky.  Pumpkin's congestion is bad and it's causing a lot of gagging/choking which is all part of clearing the gunk out, but man it scares me!  I've never had a sick baby before so this is new to me.  I'm probably overreacting but that's just what's gonna happen until he kicks this thing.  We followed up with the pediatrician today and he agrees it's just a nasty virus.  The only concern is that with the little ones what starts as a head cold/congestion can move to the lungs and cause breathing problems or other complications.  So, we're keeping up with the tylenol to keep his fever under control and watching him closely.  I do hope he turns the corner soon.  It is so sad to see those classic red rimmed, watery fever eyes on my little baby!

 

In the meantime (he is sleeping the day away right now, by the way.  I want to wake him just to ensure that I can!  But, I know that when I feel like crud I just want to sleep all day too, so trying to let him rest)  we finally got some pictures of the five of us while we were back in KS.  These are from the morning we had pastor Joel dedicate lil' peanut and pumpkin...more pictures and a pretty great story from all that to come.