105

Thank goodness today is almost over. It was a really long end to a really long week. The boys' school called me around 3:20 this afternoon. Zachary was home with Josh's mom who is in town for a few days, but Liam had been at school all day. They said everything was fine, but that when he woke up from his nap he was tugging on his ear, and they checked his temperature and he was running 100.4. The fever didn't concern me all that much, but tugging on his ears worried me. So I called the pediatrician's office & they were able to fit us in. I let my boss know what was going on & I headed out, thinking I might get an early start to the weekend. We arrived at the pediatrician's around 4:15. When they called us back, the nurse took his temerature - 105!!! I have never seen anything over 102 on a thermometer inserted into one of my kids. The doctor came in, and it was the one who had sent us to the ER back in February. I had texted Josh that she was the one we were seeing and he joked that he hoped she didn't diagnose Liam with swine flu. She determined that he does in fact have an ear infection, but since he doesn't have a history of high fevers with ear infections, she was a little concerned that he might have some other type of infection on top of the one in the ear (she even re-took his temp because she didn't think he felt as warm as 105, but when she took it again, it was still 105). She decided we needed to have some bloodwork done on him to determine whether or not there is anything else going on. Due to the time of day (it was getting close to 5:00 by this point), she had me take him to the Children's Healthcare Urgent Care center at North Point, because all the labs were closed for the day already. OK, that's at least closer than the ER at Scottish Rite where she had us go before. The only thing that annoyed me was that the urgent care place had told the pediatrician that they couldn't just do the bloodwork, that they would have to examine him themselves before deciding what to do. We arrived at the urgent care place, and were greeted with a sign informing us that the wait was 2 hours. Ugh! It was 5:30 by the time we got checked in, and the thought of sitting there for 2 more hours before being seen made me sick. I had no diaper bag (and therefore no snacks for Liam or clean diapers or toys). Not to mention I'd already had 2 nights this week where I went out & didn't get to see Zachary much. But he & Josh's mom were having a good time, so we had nothing to worry about. Shortly after 7:00 they called us back (Josh had decided to meet us there & he arrived around 6:00). They took us back & took his temperature again - 101.4. An improvement over 105 (they had given him some Motrin at the pediatrician's office - it had obviously kicked in by that point because he had been in a good mood since we had arrived at the urgent care place). The urgent care doctor came in, and confirmed the ear infection, but decided NOT TO DO THE BLOODWORK! That was the WHOLE reason we had gone there! The pediatrician had said that the protocol is to do bloodwork when there is a fever over 104.7, to determine if there is any sort of bacterial infection in the blood. However, the urgent care doctor said that used to be the case, but not anymore, and that as long as we were comfortable with the decision, she was not going to do bloodwork. Well of course we are OK with our son not getting stuck, but it's very confusing to get such conflicting information. They did do a chest x-ray to rule out pneumonia (those came back normal), so they basically sent us on our way with an antibiotic for the ear infection. We sat in that place for 2 & 1/2 hours to get a prescription for antibiotic - which I could have gotten from the pediatrician's office 3 hours earlier. SO FRUSTRATING! By the time we got home, Zachary was in bed, Liam had on the same diaper he'd had on since 3:30, none of us had eaten since lunchtime, Liam was super tired & getting warm again...It was just a long day. The pediatrician called back around 9:00 to check on Liam & to see how the urgent care visit had gone. When I told her that they had not done the bloodwork, she was furious. She said that she had called them after we left, and specifically asked them that they do it. So she was mad that they decided not to, and she felt bad that we had spent all that time there basically for nothing. She suggested that we wake up every 4 hours tonight to check on him, and give him more Tylenol, as needed, and possibly even alternate Tylenol & Motrin every 3 hours (which the urgent care doctor has said not to do). I think we will stick with Tylenol, mainly because it's what we have. But again, conflicting information - from 2 doctors who, neither one of them is our primary pediatrician - so we were left confused again. But Liam had a banana & some veggie puffs when we got home, and Josh finally arrived home with the antibiotic - we gave him the dose, and finally got him in bed around 9:15.

Meanwhile, a little before that (while Josh was still at Kroger waiting on the meds), I heard a noise come from Zachary's room. I ran upstairs and he was curled in a ball on the floor in the hallway. When I got up there he was sobbing - apparently he thought it was too dark to see in his room (despite having a night light). After I convinced him that he doesn't need to be able to see, turned on his ceiling fan, and took him to get some water, I was able to get him back in bed, and he went to sleep.

What a day. Let's hope tomorrow is a little better.