Tuesday, April 19, 2011

A Sick Buggy is a Grumpy Buggy

Poor C. He just can't seem to catch a break. For almost two months now he's has been battling one thing after the other.

February 25 started a five day fever spree. Granted, for the most part they were low grade fevers, but if you look at his pictures in my previous post, you'll be able to see just how miserable he was. I thought it was teething, since he was due for some molars, but after a week and a half of sleepless nights and an exhausted, crabby toddler Kel and I decided that enough was enough.

March 9  I took him to the doctor's and found out that he had an ear infection in both ears. No fun. Also explained the sleep changes, the retraction in speech, and the dwindling eating habits. I felt bad that I waited so long, but at least we were taking a step in the right direction and on our way to getting our Buggy better.


April 6 I took him back to the doctor's because he started his screaming wake up calls again that week. I tried to go back to the same doctor's office that I took him to in March, but they didn't have any available openings that week. So off to Urgent Care we went while D had an impromptu "Take your Son to Work" afternoon with Kel. After a little over an hour of waiting and twelve minutes with the doctor, we had another confirmation of an ear infection in both ears. We were prescribed a stronger dose of antibiotics and told it should clear up in a week.


The first antibiotics C was prescribed was Amoxicillin. It didn't even touch the infections that he had. So Dr. L prescribed a five day treatment of a stronger antibiotic called Zithromax. C took the medication from the Wednesday he went to the doctor through Sunday, along with a pain reliever, and again showed signs that he was on the mend.





Well except for the rosy red cheeks, but they've been around for so long that sometimes I think it'll be his permanent color.



Until Tuesday night rolled around.

By Friday I was at my wits end with all the side affects that are associated with a lack of sleep and on the verge of calling my mom to see if she could take him for the night until I remembered two things. One , she was out of town for the weekend for my sister's volleyball (Go R!) and two, there were two "wittle littles" at the house who were probably already keeping her up at night as they continued their transition to formula. So with that plan out, and no real back up plan in mind, I decided that we would just tough the weekend out and wait until Monday to see if he needed to go back to the doctors.

Isn't the saying something along the lines of "The best laid plans often go awry"? (Feel free to correct me here if I'm wrong)

Friday morning was decent. He ate some , not enough, but some of his breakfast before deciding it was time to play and had an okay nap. Friday afternoon was the same. Friday night around 6:30 pm he was just... done. Nothing could console him, and every little thing pissed him off, for lack of a better term. I picked him up and he felt like a sauna. While I took his temperature (102.3!) he was rubbing his ears and trying to get away. It was as he was staring at me with his "sick eyes" as my mom calls them, that I noticed his nose start to bleed. It wasn't a lot, and it was most likely just a scratch on the inside of his nose from one of his numerous attempts to pick all the snot out, but it scared me.

So, again, off we went to the Urgent Care to see what else could be wrong with my Buggy. We arrived five minutes to eight and there was only a few people in front of us. Two ladies whom I didn't know their story, a Hispanic man who did not speak English, and a little girl who had smacked the back of her head on the corner of her living room table while bouncing on her bouncy ball. I hadn't been sitting down for more than ten minutes when two of the four people were called to the back. I remember thinking to myself that with the rate this was going I should be home in an hour or so.

Boy was I wrong.

As I heard the woman at the front desk state to anyone who asked, the Urgent Care did not take appointments and the wait depended on what you were being treated for. Understandable, but when I watched a lady with a dog bite, a man with symptoms of a heart attack, and another man with some type of... boil, I guess you could call it, on his leg from an injury that happened over eight days prior get called to the back before my crying-so-hard-he-conks-out-for-forty-five-minutes, waiting-longer-than-they-were toddler gets the call... well needless to say I was frustrated. Well minus the guy with symptoms of a heart attack, I was not frustrated with him or the hour it took for the doctor to determine that he was having a heart attack and she needed to call an ambulance because the severity of the condition was out of her league at the tiny Urgent Care. Once he was gone, I thought that C and the little girl would be first to get the call back since we were here before the other two and C was still being pitiful . Again I was wrong, as a dog bite, boil and possible head concussion are deemed much more severe than a measly common ear infection. Even though said ear infection resided in an almost eighteen month old who was so hot from his fever, so tired from the last week of sleep disturbances, and in so much pain that his cry was making one of the other women tear up with him. And no it wasn't me.

We were the last to be seen. At 9:50 pm. And the office had been closed since 9. But it's ok, I would have waited as long as it took for C to be seen. When we were finally taken back, the nurse didn't weigh him since he'd been there nine days before. Temperature check told us that he was now at 101.4 and then the nurse left us to settle in until the doctor came.

Which took another fifteen minutes.

But she was so nice. C loved her and she seemed to actually WANT to know what's been going on with my Buggy. Not the quick check of the ear, another prescription, and out the door kind of doctor. She made faces and got C to laugh so she could check his throat (no easy feat). She listened to me while I told her about the new, and old, symptoms that C has been having over the past two months. And she made me wish she wasn't an Urgent Care doctor so I can make her the boys regular doctor when she said that Strep is going around so, although it is unlikely at his age that he'll have it, she'll swab and send it out to verify (negative!). She also listened to his lungs to make sure the fluid hadn't started to go south (it hadn't). Two things that may seem common and normal things for a doctor to do, and should not make me so giddy, but two things that not even his doctor had done (yes I am aware that we need a new doctor).

And this time she insisted that he get re-checked in two weeks. And prescribed me a stronger antibiotic that she knows will help but was very reluctant to give due to the side affects. Which for Buggy was pretty severe diarrhea and an even worse diaper rash.

Like I said, my Buggy just can't seem to catch a break.

But on day two of being on the antibiotics I was the recipient of a day full of smiles, giggles, and laughs. So I will take the side affects and beat them. Tons of Desitin, petroleum jelly, and baby powder has kept the rash in check and today (day three) the diarrhea has subsided. So we will take it one day at a time and hope that this latest round of antibiotics will work it's magic and get rid of the infections once and for all.



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