My summer officially started at 1 on Thursday.
I ran a couple of errands on my way to the daycare on Wednesday, but on Thursday, I planned to pick up Witten around 5 so that I could get some stuff done around the house. I hadn't even been home for an hour and a half when the daycare called and told me that Witten had a fever of 102.4. This made me sad on multiple fronts.
1. I had planned to take him to daycare on Friday too which was to be his last day so that I could get some things done at home.
2. He was going to miss his last day, and we didn't really get a chance to say good-bye to his teachers because we weren't expecting this.
3. I hadn't bought presents yet for the teachers, and was going to get some on my way to picking Witten up on Friday as well as getting a picture of him with all three of them.
I took him to the doctor (really the nurse practitioner saw us because it was last minute), they diagnosed him with an ear infection, and we started him on an antibiotic.
On Friday, Witten's fever never really got better. He spent the bulk of the day sleeping on me, and his fever was anywhere between 100.8 and over 103. At 4:20, it spiked to 104.9, so I called his doctor's office. They said to bring him in, but on my way, they called back and told me to just take him to Cook's. We weren't prepared for that. His diaper bag wasn't packed for a long trip to the hospital, and I wasn't really sure how to get there, so we stopped and got my mom on the way. She drove while I sat in the back and tried to cool Witten off with a wet washcloth.
Mitch met us there and parked my mom's car for her. When we got in, we got through triage fairly quickly. They gave him some Tylenol, and sent us to another waiting room. We waited there a bit longer than I wanted, but eventually they put us into a holding room. I have affectionately termed this room "hospital purgatory". It had two beds with a curtain in between. We had to share the room with another family who had a 9 month old with a rash and a fussy two year old who didn't want to be there. It was loud, and we were tired!
After learning more about Witten's medical history, they put in a catheter to get a urine sample. That didn't go over well, but it was fast, and he soon forgot about it. They also did an x-ray which came back clean as did his urine sample. At this point, the doctor was not convinced that an ear infection was causing all of this fever, so he did a blood test. They were going to put in an IV, but because he had SO many IVs in the NICU, they had a hard time getting anything in, so they just drew blood and left it at that. I hope that the scar tissue isn't always going to be a problem for IVs. I know that in the NICU, they moved his IVs sometimes up to 3 times a day before finally putting in a pic line.
I think he looks so cute in his little hospital outfit!
We read a story while we waited on the doctor. Good thing I had two of my favorites in his bag!
He was still a little sad though. It was LATE, and WAY past his bedtime.
Witten is trying to peel the bandage off from where they tried to put the IV in.
Finally, the doctor gave him a powerful shot, told us to stop giving him his antibiotic that the nurse practitioner prescribed, and sent us home. After stopping for dinner at McDonald's, we arrived home around 11:30pm and still had to force some liquids into Witten. He hadn't had any since about 4:45, and I was a little worried. He also refused to drink on his own, so I had to force the cup in his mouth and hold it there until he gave up and drank some.
This morning, we began giving him liquids through one of his medicine syringes, and that seems to be working well. He took about 8-10oz that way, and then finally drank about 5oz on his own. Unfortunately, his fever is back up again, and the doctor said that we can expect that for up to five or six days. He may have to miss his very first Summer Spectacular! I'm so sad...
This is NOT how I pictured the beginning of my summer, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't like the cuddle time I've gotten with my little man the last few days.
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