NOT FUN!!!!!

So I have more Florida pictures I've been meaning to post, but given our hectic weekend, it just hasn't happened yet. See we got home really late Wednesday night. I had been nervous about flying by myself with 2 babies, but actually it worked out okay. They really are pretty good travelers and I was fortunate on our long flight to be seated next to a lady who loves kids and actually asked to hold the baby. (Which was a blessing when I had to change Gideon's diaper.) Anyway Thursday Gideon had a cough and was kind of cranky, but I chalked it up to us traveling and coming back to the cold, dry climate. Friday morning he woke up at 5:30 just burning up with fever. (103.1 actually.) So I gave him some tylenol, which brought it down to a lower grade, but didn't really get rid of it. I had to babysit on Friday, so I sent Gideon to Nana's house for most of the day hoping to keep him from getting the other kids sick. Friday night was bad. He woke up again burning up with fever and all day Saturday all he did was sit on the couch in my arms, crying "Owie, Owie, Owie, it hurts!" At that point I figured he had fever aches as well as a headache. He was so listless and every 3 or 4 hours his fever would spike above 103 and I'd give him more Tylenol. Finally we decided to take him to the doctor. Fortunately our pediatrician's office is open on Saturdays, so we took him in around 4 pm.

After 2 hours they'd tested him for everything they could think of and everything came back negative (Flu, RSV, Strep, Kidney Infection, Bladder infection etc.) Getting a urine sample was the worst, because he was so dehydrated he couldn't give a sample, so they had to use a catheter to get one. Poor baby! I think it traumatized me and Travis as much as it did him. Still having a significant temperature and a lot of pain, the PA sent us over to the ER for x-rays and scans, believing that it could be appendicitis. (He was complaining of a lot of abdominal pain.) Of course at the ER there were more tests. This time an IV (which was good because he really needed fluids anyway) and a blood draw and x-rays. Poor baby felt like a pin cushion! After 2 more hours they came in and informed us it was pnuemonia and they were going to keep him at least overnight. Because of the sever abdominal pain he was having they weren't willing to rule out appendicitis just yet. So they decided to keep him, get him started on an antibiotic and do another blood draw in the morning to check the white cell levels, which would tell us if it was an infection (aka appendicitis) other than the pnuemonia.

He DID NOT like having the IV in. In fact, shortly after this he started kicking and screaming and trying to tear it out, so they had to re-wrap it more like a cast so he couldn't get to it.

The popsicle helped a little, but he was still crying "It hurts!" and "Owie!" so much that they gave him a little morphine to help him calm down.

By the time we got up to pediatrics, the painkillers had definitely kicked in and he was being quite funny. Singing little songs and acting silly. They put him in some pj pants, made him some mac & cheese, gave him a juice box and turned on a Disney movie, so he was totally Chillaxed!

Finally sleep! It was after 10:30 before he finally dropped off. He was so exhausted he actually slept good for quite a while. (Until they came in at 5:30am to draw more blood!)

I sent Travis home and this is where I slept. It's good that they have those chairs that will fold all the way down, but they really are not very comfortable. And between the stress and the worry, I wasn't sleeping that well anyway. And then of course I was up every hour when they came in to check his temperature and his vitals. His fever finally broke around 4:30am so that was a relief.

Breakfast was good. He didn't eat much, but nibbled on a few things and watched cartoons.

Man he was so happy to get the IV out! As soon as it was gone, he jumped out of bed and started running in circles. Amazing the difference 12 hours of IV fluid and antibiotics will make!

We got to come home yesterday around lunch time. He's still not totally back to himself, he still doesn't feel perfect, but it's definitely an improvement. He'll be on antibiotics for 10 days, but at the follow-up at the Dr. today he said we're definitely progressing in the right direction! Thanks to all those who were praying for us over the weekend. I know it helped!