Our Family Blog: ER and Hospital Trip!

Last week was not fun at all. Dawson got a 104 fever one evening and though after a bath it came down to 102, it went right back up to 104 again within an hour. After fighting it for a while, I called the on call Dr and he said to alternate motrin and tylenol and see if it goes down, if not, then go to the ER. Well, it didn't so we went in. They took blood, did a catheter since he wasn't peeing, and came back saying he was dehydrated. They had prepped him for an IV earlier, which he wasn't liking. When they came in to do the IV, the line in his arm had kinked, even though he was just sleeping the whole time they were gone. So instead of torturing him again, they decided to make him drink pedialyte and send him home. We were there for 6 hours that night!

The next morning he woke up with a high fever but it went down in the afternoon. Later I found out that's typical with a viral infection, up in the morning and evening but normal in the afternoon. That evening it was back up really high. It was 104, then down to 103, then up to 105! So we went back into the ER and they did an IV for 90 minutes and then admitted us to the hospital. I called Dan's work and told him to head to the hospital when he got off work. Dawson did much better once on the IV. They still gave him tylenol and motrin, but the fever was going down quite a bit just from the IV. They added some antibiotics to the IV that night too incase it was an infection. He didn't want to sleep in his crib that night, so he slept with me and Dan. He's not big on sleeping in new places.

The next morning he was doing better. We got a visit from Grandma, who brought him a little ball to play with. I was out of the room when she came in, but Dan said he perked right up when he saw her. Cool to see him recognizing people more these days. After that, Dan left to get stuff from home and I got the nurse to unhook his IV from the wall so we could go play and wonder the halls. We found a little car he really liked and he thought the playroom was cool too, though he was mad that the IV hose kept getting in the way of his playing. He would try to rip it out many times, we had put a mesh sock over it the night before but he figured out how to get that off rather quickly. At 5pm they said we could go home. It was a long day, but still didn't find out what was wrong! I was rather frustrated. We actually left around 6pm.

Once we got home, Dawson was very happy to be home but still very clingy. He had a fever right away, even though he had none when they took it before we left. They took out the IV right before we left, so they didn't allow time to see what would happen once it was out. I thought that was weird. He was at a 102 that night and then woke up the next morning with a 104 again. I called the clinic once they opened and talked to the nurse. She checked the dose of tylenol I was giving him and said to give him more. Apparently the dose on the box is often a lower dose than they can get if needed. So I gave him more and it went down a bit. We were also hitting the afternoon, so it went away. We went into the Dr at 11am and he said he looks ok, and there's nothing they can do for a viral infection other than keep the fever down and keep them hydrated. I was giving him gatorade by syringe so he said to keep doing that. It was the only way he'd take it! That was the end of the fever. Sunday night he broke out in a bad rash on his back and front. They said to watch for that because it might be Roseola. Apparently it was! The rash didn't bug him much and went away within 24 hours and he's all better now.

He's been very clingy, hates getting in and out of the car, though I can't really blame him, I keep taking him to places who poke him with needles! Even in Walmart he cried the whole time and refused to be in the cart! Thankfully that only lasted a couple days. We went shopping yesterday and he was just fine with that. He's back to eating and drinking just fine and he's happy and energetic.

I took a bunch of pics while we were in the ER and Hospital. He likes it when I take pics and it was cheering him up. I finally got some smiles out of him and got some really cute pics in the afternoon when he was feeling better.

This is when we got there and were waiting for the Dr to come in. He was so miserable!

This is what he had on when they prepped him for the IV. His whole arm was tapped up with a soft board behind it so he couldn't bend his arm. He was NOT happy about that!

We did a lot of waiting in the 6 hours we were there! We mostly sat and he ate cheerios and nursed. His mood got better after I started taking pics. We were getting goofy with the camera and he got his mind off where he was a bit.

This was the hospital room we stayed in. He liked the crib at first, he was watching TV and eating animal crackers for a while. He fell asleep for a while, but after the IV machine went off and beeped a few times, he woke up and didn't want the crib anymore.

He loved having a nice view out the window. He's standing on the bed looking out to the road, watching the cars go by. I was just glad for a distraction from trying to get the stuff off his arm! The IV was in at that point, it's going in by his elbow.