Day by Day

A mama blogs the journey to transplant and beyond...

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Bugs and Blood

We all recently fell victim to the flu in the last month. First the boys were a little sick, no fevers and then I got sick and the next week was Chris. I thought we had all made it through but then both Joaquin and Sage got sick again. Sage sailed through it fine, minus the copious amounts of snot and a bit of a cough. I was never concerned about him as he is still exclusively breastfeeding and should be mostly protected against nasty bugs.

Joaquin did get a fever. Chris woke me up just before he left for work and asked me to feel Joaquin's head. At first he felt a little warm but as I began to wake up more I felt that he was actually quite hot. I took a temperature on him and it was 102.6! Wow. He was actually awake during this and he was chatting with me and asked him how he felt. He said, "fine." I told him that he had a fever and when he has fevers we usually need to take him to the emergency room and asked him if he thought he should go see the doctors and he said no. I kept remembering the conversation that I had with the doctor at Stanford during the last fever and so I put an after-hours call into our pediatrician and meanwhile gave him a dose of Tylenol. The fever immediately responded to the Tylenol (which is a good sign - when he had pneumonia the last time it did not respond to the medicine) and when the doctor called back he said that I was doing everything right and to keep an eye on him for the next couple days.

Joaquin did pretty good, he held onto that fever for about three or four days and finally on the fourth or fifth day I decided to make an appointment with his pediatrician because I had read in my Dr. Sears book that a fever lasting longer than 72 hours in a toddler should be examined by a doctor. The morning I took him in he was complaining of a back ache. What could that mean? It kind of scared me because I was thinking - what if it was a urinary track infection? We had to wait a long time to see the doctor (about an hour) and I just stood outside the germy office and held Joaquin the whole time. Joaquin wasn't totally lethargic; he was still talking with me and joking a little bit but he kept complaining of a back ache. Finally we got into the office and our ped came in quickly - within five minutes probably. He did the three things that I wanted him to: 1) listen to his lungs. 2) check his ears, 3) check his urine. All three things came up fine, no infections. Yay! There's nothing they could give him, it was just a virus that had to run it's course. The doctor agreed with me that we would only give him Tylenol when he was obviously in pain. Since fevers are not an illness, just a normal, healthy response to the body fighting an illness I feel it's just best to let them do their work.

I gave him a dose of Tylenol after we left the doctor's office because he said his back hurt and that seemed to help him out. That was the last dose that I had to end up giving him because by that night his fever was gone and he was nice and cool from that night on. I was getting freaked out on the way to the doctor's office that he was so warm but he was still talking with me. The last couple times he's had a bad fever and we've taken him to the ER he was really listless and lethargic. So that was a good sign. I spoke with his nurse the other day and she was saying when it comes to the fever, just treat it symptomatically and to make sure he's hydrated because dehydration is the main concern with it comes to sickness and fevers. He just had labs done Monday for his monthly labs and his creatinine and BUN are both perfect.

Speaking of labs. We have been blessed to fine an amazing phlebotomist. His name is Bucky and he is amazing. He's very calm and very good. It has made our whole blood draw experience much less stressful on all of us. Before we would have to wait so long to get in and now it's no more than 10 minutes usually. Also, Bucky always gets it. There have been a couple times that he's had to poke a second time but usually it's on the first poke. Joaquin doesn't scream or get upset anymore because he knows it's not going to be as painful. We were just at this point were none of the best phlebotomists at the outpatient labs could get any blood. We were having to leave and go long periods before getting blood. And it was so stressful. The lab we go to now is in the hospital, Renown. We feel so thankful that we found Bucky.

We are leaving Friday to go to Arizona once again. We did this last year around this time. Chris's parents have a timeshare in Flagstaff so that's where we will be staying. I'll hopefully have lots of good pictures to share once we get back. Take care! And thanks for reading.






































1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

update please :)

xoxox
Katie

5:53 AM  

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