My family rocks. My in-laws rock. I am beyond lucky and blessed to have in laws who adore my kids (and me) and supportive parents and siblings myself. We also have some pretty great friends. The majority of both our families live within 20 minutes of us, including the hubs' tons of cousins. We also work for a pretty A+ company with caring and compassionate bosses and co-workers. So, allow me to stress again how thankful I am for the wonderful people in our lives.
Why am I stressing this?
Well, here's the story, morning glory...
I had a 5 day weekend (Wed-Sun) and then headed back to work on Mon, June 28th. That evening Owen announced he had a headache. 11 pm rolled around and he started to vomit. Profusely. Followed by dry heaving. Accompanied by a fever. Shit. Of course he couldn't have been sick on vacation. Wrote it off as the stomach flu. Dropped him off at the mother in laws Tues morn. Called at lunch. She could not keep his fever down and he was curled in a ball and moaning. Called the pediatrician. The hubs took off work early and took him to a 4:30 pm appt.
Hubs called me at 5, we needed to get to the ER.
We had the Syd with my parents and were at the ER with O by 6 pm. High fever - 103-104-ish. Vomit. Strong stomach pain. Could be appendicitis. The pediatrician had felt a knot in his belly.
6 hours later, 1 blood test, 1 catheter to get urine to test, 1 strep test, 1 xray and 1 ultrasound later... the ER doc said not the appendix. But Owen was severely dehydrated (he had an IV by then), a high fever and his white blood cell count was insanely high.
At 2:30 am Wed we were admitted to the Peds floor.
Wednesday involved more Dr's (4 more plus a Nurse Practitioner and Physicians Assistant), more blood and urine tests and a CAT scan. Oh and another catheter. By the end of Wednesday we knew his bladder was swollen to the size of a cantaloupe. We didn't know why. The fever of 104 was still persisting.
Thursday involved a VCUG (dye going into the bladder and ultrasounds of the bladder). He had bladder reflux were his urine tries to go backwards into the kidneys. But his bladder was back to normal.
We started the laxatives on Thur eve and removed the catheter.
Still had the fever on Friday but he was peeing and pooping on his own. More bladder ultrasounds. More blood and urine tests. But the little man started to pick up and wanted to eat real food, wanted to read a book, wanted to hold his balloons.
By Friday at 6 pm, I felt like I had gone through an episode of House. I had showered once. I had left the hospital maybe 3 times, for no more than an hour each time (maybe a little longer the time I showered). I had seen my daughter only two times in a week, for a grand total of maybe two hours. I had slept in a child size hospital bed with a sick child. I had seen a pediatric urologist and a host of other specialists. My kid had been poked and prodded. All we knew was the blood and urine test showed nothing: no UTI, no Lyme disease, no strep... just a high fever and a high white blood cell count.
But we were making progress, the fever was going down. The blood cell count returning to normal ranges. He was eating, peeing, pooping. He was no longer dehydrated. The antibiotics seemed to be working.
Our formal diagnosis: when Owen pees, he never empties his bladder completely. This is probably been going on for months, if not a year. He has bladder reflux. When Owen poops, he never empties his bowel completely. Same thing, something that has been going on for quite some time. Not that he hasn't peed or pooped in months - he has; on a fairly regular basis; even w/in 24 hours of our hospital trip. He just doesn't go all the way. Finally the stool in his bowel became so hard and so large it blocked everything - including his bladder, causing his bladder to became enlarged. Once this happened his little insides slowly stopped working and the bacteria began to spread...queue the fever and the spiked white blood cell count. Once we emptied him out and started the antibiotics, he started to feel better.
Next up: an appointment with a pediatric urologist (they call themselves: Uro-DYNAMICS!) to figure out it is a behavior issue or if he has some genetic issue (ie his nerves don't function properly) that is causing this.
Now the whole time we were at the hospital the grandmas traded off the Syd and made sure she was A-okay. Cousins walked and feed our dog. Our house was cleaned for us. People brought us food. Everyone prayed for us. Our bosses touched base daily and our coworkers picked up the slack, without missing a beat. All we had to do was sit in the hospital room and hold Owen's hand. For this, I am eternally grateful.
We got home about 8:30 Friday night. Sunday morning Syd woke up feverish. Took her to the dr today - strep. You know what? I'm exhausted but I can hang with strep.
