We were supposed to be up North at my cousin's wedding for the weekend. They were getting married in Lake Leelanau and we were looking forward to getting away. My parents were going too and offered to watch August an afternoon so Doug & I could go out baby-free to just have a date day in the beachtown city, and I was reaaaaallly looking forward to it.
Instead August had spiked a fever again, and after calls to the family we were going to stay with, it sounded like no one wanted us to come and potentially spread the germs. So we stayed home. In the afternoon August seemed a little worse, and he was even sitting in his high chair shaking with chills and his lips turned blue. Of course it was the weekend so his doctor was closed, so we went to the hospital where they have an after hours pediatric clinic.
As soon as the nurse found out I said he was shaking and had blue lips she told us she thought he had a seizure and we had to go next door to the ER. That was when I started crying. So we walked down there. And I cried more tears as they strapped a little nametag bracelet to his ankle. That little bracelet turned him from a boy just going in for a quick check-up, to a little sick boy who might have just had a seizure and I couldn't handle it.
Right away we saw a Nurse Practitioner who after we explained again what happened, reassured us that she didn't think he had a seizure. Just that in an effort to cool his body down he was shaking and blood shunted away from the lips which explained them briefly turning blue. So that was a huge relief. But we still needed to figure out why the high fever. And he'd had one the weekend before, and the month before that had us in the Urgent Care while we were visiting my brother.
So the testing began. Poor August was poked and prodded. They did a rectal temp (most accurate) 104.7, they did a straight cath (a tube into the bladder to get a clean urine specimen), and they drew blood and started an IV to give him fluids. It just seemed so serious. Urine cultures, lab work, blood cultures. He did wiggle and scream, but overall did pretty well I thought. And the nurse and tech were great and everything (except the rectal probe not working until the third time) only took one try.
So then we waited for results and August napped on dad.
My boy looks so big!
The blood work came back normal, but the urine was +1 bacteria with some white blood cells, which usually wouldn't be treated, but since his fever was so high he did get a dose of IV antibiotics. And after that they let us go.
During the night Doug slept on the couch and got up every 4 hours to check August's temperature, and he had 2 more fevers during the night. But after that he's been fever-free. The cultures both came back negative which means he did not have a true urinary tract infection, so that's good, but it also doesn't really solve the mystery of these high fevers. He'd been so drooly lately I thought he was getting his 2 year molars, but the NP said while you can get a fever with teething it's rarely over 100. So that kinda busts that theory.
Anyway, I'm so thankful that August is ok and it wasn't anything serious. My heart breaks thinking about children who are really truly sick in hospitals. It was really scary. Thank you Lord for protecting my boy!
