I am currently sitting at my computer to write this blog, something I haven't done for the last several days. It feels refreshing. The children are napping right now, and I imagine by the time I reach the end of this post they will be in bed for the night. My life does not have many "start and finish something uninterrupted" moments these days.
Good news, friends! We are finally on the mend! (Mostly*) My pinkeye is all but completely gone and so is Carolyn's. I have some lingering congestion but no more pounding headaches or body aches or exhaustion. Carolyn is sleeping much better which has been phenomenal (I'm getting a broken seven hours of sleep instead of a broken three), and I think her ear infection has resolved because she's been her happy self again. Even Peter has some energy back, his congestion is much better, he hasn't gotten any hives for two days, and his infection has cleared up completely (and we lucked out and never had to use the antibiotics! Yay for intact gut flora!).
(*)The remaining issue that we have is what caused such a rough evening on Saturday, and is why I barely wrote anything yesterday. [Insert another warning where I let you know I'm going to talk about poop.] On Saturday Peter was really irritable and upset all day, and his fever had spiked back up to 101 that morning. He hadn't had a fever for a couple of days and had seemed like he was on the mend, so this was odd and troubling. I gave him some motrin and his fever came down but he stayed irritable and upset. Later in the evening, he had a pretty loose bowel movement (BM) that he seemed to struggle with/be upset by. He hadn't gone since Wednesday when his diarrhea triggered his infection, but his appetite had still be poor so had I assumed that was why. Because he struggled so much with this BM, I started thinking that maybe he had been grumpy all day because he was plugged up.
We got the diaper changed and he seemed like he might still be working on something because his breathing was a little labored and he just had that "I'm pooping" look on his face for a while, but no more poops. Around six that night Marty was holding Peter and commented on how hot he felt. I took his temperature again and it was over 102 this time. I started getting a little worried, and noticed that his heart seemed to be racing, but I was NOT in a rush to go to the doctor again. We checked his temperature about 30 minutes later and it had jumped up to 103.4. This was higher than his fever had been the entire sickness, and a fever that high was one of the "fever worries" that our pediatrician had told me earlier in the week. Then we noticed that his abdomen looked swollen and was much harder than usual, so we decided to take him to urgent care. We took his temperature one more time before we left and it had jumped AGAIN to 104.5! In just about an hour it had jumped more than two degrees. That was another "fever worry" that the pediatrician had mentioned. Urgent Care had an hour wait, so we skipped and went to the ER instead. I don't know if that was the right call, but it seemed like the best one at the time.
We got Peter all checked in and no one seemed to think anything was as urgent as we had thought. They thought it was likely another virus hitting him and gave him some motrin to bring the fever down (which he fought like a banshee). His heart rate was 177 bpm, so at least I was right that his heart was racing! But apparently that's pretty normal with a high fever. They were slightly worried about his breathing so they did a chest x-ray. They also tried to give him some tylenol when the fever hadn't come down all the way and he was NOT having that. No tylenol for him. Luckily his fever came the rest of the way down within a few minutes.
All of this had taken a couple of hours, and it was past both of the kid's bedtimes, by quite a bit. They were both cranky and tired, and Peter was especially fried. On the X-rays they saw that his abdomen was pretty distended, but their best guess was that it was from him swallowing air. We left with instructions to keep him on motrin and tylenol and to make sure he was getting lots of fluids, and to watch to see if anything worse/more happens.
Yesterday he did really well, but we had him on medicine all day. This morning he woke up and his dose of medicine had worn off while he was sleeping, and his temperature was 103.9. He's been upset and really irritable again today. I have a theory right now... I think he is holding in his poop. Peter has always been a very sensitive child, easily scared, easily excited, easily upset, and I think when he had diarrhea on Wednesday it was painful for him and that he might have tried to hold it in after that. Then on Saturday it was painful again (he said "ow" a few times as he was working on it). I think he may have needed to go more on Saturday, but didn't want to. After some googling I found several other parents who have had toddlers hold in their poop when potty training is not going well, and that it was causing things like fevers, irritability, and a swollen abdomen. All of his other flu symptoms seems to be waning, so I'm pretty confident this is not related to the original sickness.
We were recommended to try something called Mag07, which has apparently been helpful for keeping toddler's regular when they are trying to hold it in. That's the game plan for the moment, we'll see how things look over the next 24 hours or so. And that's where we're at with Peter.
Labels: Family, Motherhood