Sick Baby and Scared Parents!

Tuesday, March 16th, we went to Caden's well baby appointment. He actually turns 9 months on the 20th, but we can't make appointments early so we basically get in to see the doctor when there's "space available." We thought 4 days isn't too off. I'll give the details of that appointment in another post.

The next day Caden went from his normal happy, smiling self to cranky, crying, not interesting in doing anything but crying and being held. In the afternoon he felt very hot so I took his temperature with our ear thermometer. It said he had a 100.6 temperature. I called the appointment line at the pediatrics office. I told the operator what was going on and she thankfully had an appointment available the next morning.

Caden continued his sad spell throughout the evening and his fever went up. Collin came home and we took his temperate rectally. His fever had gone up to 102.8. We started praying. He was still uncomfortable and cranky. He seemed to be in a lot of pain. We tried everything we could do to comfort him.

We got him to sleep at 8pm and he slept until midnight. We had barely laid down to sleep when Caden woke up screaming. We went in there and his diaper had flooded with pee. His back and bed were warm. Collin cleaned him up and gave him to me while he changed his sheets. Meanwhile Caden cried and cried and cried. We took turns walking him, rocking him, talking to him, reading to him, nothing we did seemed to help. We took his temperature again, still high. We considered going to the KinderKlinik (children's hospital) it was that bad. We decided to wait it out and give him some baby Tylenol and see if he would calm down. Finally at 3:30 I decided to breastfeed him. I really don't like doing this in the middle of the night because it misses up my milk supply. Anyway, that seemed to help. However, since I no longer give night-time feedings I ran out milk pretty fast. When that happened he started crying again. I asked Collin to take him downstairs and get him some oatmeal because I thought he was still hungry. We don't have any formula since I breastfeed him. I think we're going to go ahead and buy some just in case we need it, if you have a brand you suggest, please let us know. I had to lay down, my legs were so weak and I was so tired from carrying him around earlier that day. Collin was a HUGE help. He mainly held him and finally got him to sleep around 5:40am and came to bed. Our alarms went off at 7am and the sleep deprived parents got ready to take Caden to the doctor.

We ended up being at the doc's office for 7 hours. Because of Caden's high fever they did a lot of tests. While we were waiting for the doctor they brought some medicine for him to take to help reduce his fever. It was a generic medicine similar to Tylenol and he ended up throwing it up and the little bit of food he ate earlier all over the floor. Poor kiddo! This caused him to cry even more! They ordered some suppositories and later the nurse administered one of those which helped a lot.

After waiting an hour and a half before seeing the doctor we asked if there was another doctor available to see him sooner. Our doctor was super busy! Thankfully someone saw us not too long after we made the request. The doctor heard a wheezing sound in his chest so she sent us across the street to have x-rays done. Before that they gave Caden a breathing treatment and took a snot sample. He seemed to like the breathing treatment but hated getting his snot removed.

The radiologist technician asked Collin to go back there with Caden because it wouldn't be good for me to be exposed to the radiation. They put Caden on a baby bicycle looking thing and had Collin raise Caden's arms. I heard him crying from the waiting room. Poor baby!

After the x-rays we went back to the doctor's office. The doctor ruled out the flu or a common cold based on the results of the snot sample. She told me they needed to take his blood and put a catheter in him for a urine sample - ouch! I asked if all this was really necessary. I didn't want to see him go through tests he did not absolutely need. She told me yes and that if they don't and it's something serious he could be hospitalized. She said it's best to find out what he has within the first 24-48 hours. This made me sad and scared.

While we were waiting for the nurses to get set-up I had Collin ask the head nurse what her opinion was on getting these tests. Again, I wanted to make sure they HAD to do these tests. The thought of them sticking a catheter in my baby was painful and same with getting a blood sample. The head nurse pretty much said the same thing the doctor said. They needed to check for a bacterial infection or a more serious viral infection.

It was so hard to watch. This is the first time he's experienced any like this. We won't know what he has until Saturday when they get the results back from the lab.

When we got home last night his temperature was still 102.9. We gave him some medicine and he thankfully slept for 11 hours! He was one tired baby! Collin and I got close to 8 hours which was nice. This morning his temperature has gone done. God answers prayers. He seems to be doing better today. He's still not eating much but at least he's wanting to play a little and his fever has gone down. Please keep us in your prayers. We'll let you know what the test results are once we get them. Thanks for reading this long post!