1st ER Trip

Ryan made his first ER trip this week. It's been a long week. It started with hives last Sunday. We gave him some allergy medicine and those disappeared. Monday he was a little congested, but also cutting a new tooth. That evening he had a low grade fever. Tuesday he was a little congested but fine in the morning. That afternoon he spiked a fever of 102.5. Wednesday, Ryan woke up with a fever...it was around 101. I called the pediatrician and changed Ryan's 9 month well check to a sick visit and we headed to the pediatrician's office. The dr checked Ryan for the flu and that was negative. She didn't like his fever being so high but said to call if anything changed or if the fever went higher. We headed home and I put the boys down for naps. When he woke up from his nap, he was running a fever of 103.4 and now had this strange looking rash on his legs and arms. I debated about calling...I don't want to be one of "those" moms. But thought I should since I'd never seen a rash like that in all my rash experience with the other two boys (I think after all this I should get an honorary nursing license or something). I called and the nurse asked a bunch of questions. She asked the usual, "when you push on it or stretch the skin does it disappear?" I said, "no." She was not expecting this as she had already written it off as a fever rash. She said, "it's still there?" Me-"Yes." Nurse-"Let me get the dr." The dr came on and asked the same questions. She then asked me which ER I would like to go to. I was not expecting this as I had already thought they would just have us come back in the morning. I told her Seton Williamson and she said, "head on over there now and I will call ahead and let them know to be ready for you." In my mind I'm really not liking this and trying not to get too emotional yet. Mark was very calm and matter of fact and said he'd stay with the boys and get them dinner and in bed. So Ryan and I headed out. They walked us back to an isolated room (not the curtain area) and started asking a million questions. The dr came in right away and looked Ryan over and then said, "We are going to go ahead and start an IV with some antibiotics, we will need to do a urine analysis so we will have to place a catheter, and then we will be doing a lumbar puncture or spinal tap to look for meningitis. I will start working on getting him admitted and he will need to be transferred down to Dell Children's because we do not admit children here." So two nurses came in and started the IV. I was so thankful they found the vein immediately. They took a bunch of blood samples and then hooked him up to a bag of fluids. Then the chest x-ray guy came in and I had to pin Ryan down (who is screaming now) so they could to those. That finished and he calmed down a little bit, they had to come re-wrap his IV b/c part of the arm bar they used to keep him from pulling his IV out scraped his stomach during the chest X-rays. Then they started the catheter. He did NOT like that...that is a one way street. After that they gave us a break, so I called Mark to tell him what was going on and that we were waiting for the spinal tap and to see if they were going to let him go home. They came in to do the spinal tap. The dr was very nice but said the dumbest thing...she said as she is scrubbing down Ryan's back, "my brother had to have a spinal tap when he was 2 weeks old and my mom still talks about it." Not what you want to hear when they are about to start digging into your baby's spine. But it went well...the shots of lidocaine hurt and made Ryan sad. But after that I could tell he was just mad that they were pinning him down. With that over, it was just time to wait. A friend came over to watch the boys and Mark headed to the hospital. By now, Ryan's rash had spread to his face, chest, legs...he was covered. I learned that his rash is called a petechiae rash and is a classic meningitis symptom. His fever started climbing so they gave him a mega-dose of motrin and then another bag of fluids. The lab results came back somewhat in conclusive, but it did not look like meningitis thankfully! So they decided that if his fever went down with the motrin, he could go home. Thankfully it went down to 99.4 and so they sent us on our way. We had follow-up visits with the pediatrician Thursday and phone calls Friday. The fever finally broke on Saturday, which we are very thankful for. He is doing great now (Sunday). Still does not have much of an appetite, but he's got the chubbs to compensate for a little while. We are just thankful he is ok and I pray I never have to do this again!!