A Slightly Traumatic Morning

Exactly one month ago Desmond was on antibiotics for an ear infection and sore throat. Well, Tuesday morning at 2am he was awake with a 102.5 fever that stayed consistently throughout the day. Tuesday night it spiked to 104.7. Yikes! The advice nurse said to give him Tylenol and a sponge bath to lower the fever and call again if it didn’t improve. We made it through the night and all day Wednesday, but then he didn’t want to eat or drink much of anything so we scheduled the doctor visit.

This morning I took Desmond in, and the doctor was very concerned that he had such a high fever. There were no other symptoms to go on so she ordered a barrage of tests. First was the throat swab. Gagging isn’t fun. Then the urine sample with a catheter. Really not fun. Then the chest x-ray where they cinched him up in a tight tube with his arms above his head. Really, really not fun. Finally some blood work. Yeah, still no fun to be had, but he was cute in his mini hospital gown! Mostly, these things scared Des because they involved being held down. The poor little guy took a three hour nap when we finally got home. (I hope he doesn’t have any bad dreams!)

Doctor says… the initial blood work looks like it's a virus and his blood cell count is strong so that's good. Strep came back negative, but the x-ray showed a bit of pneumonia in his right lung. Oh, dear! How’d he get that? We have to wait a couple days to get back the urine and blood cultures to see if they can further identify what’s going on. Since a strain of bacteria can cause pneumonia, we have antibiotics again.

Desmond is feeling noticeably better today, but the fever though lower is still persisting. I sure hope he gets completely well quickly and that he will stay well for a long, long time!