Catching up

***WARNING...this will take a few minutes to get through.

Owen has been sick on and off for over three weeks. It started with a runny nose and a fever. His fever usually lasts for a day or so but not this time. It hung around for almost a week. We took him to the doctor and thankfully his ears and lungs were clear. His fever finally ended and we thought that was the end. A few days later he got a cough and we thought it was just drainage.

Last weekend his fever returned. He had it for another few days and we took him back to the doctor last Wednesday. Again, he just had a cold. The doctor told us to bring him back on Friday if he still had a fever. Thursday...no fever. Friday...no fever. Friday night...high fever. Of course! This always happens on the weekend. Despite the fever, he seemed okay and slept so-so on Friday night. Saturday, Brig and her mom went shopping and Owen and I stayed in and played. He had no fever on Saturday and was perfectly happy despite his never ending runny nose and cough. Saturday night he woke up crying. This rarely happens, but since he was sick it wasn't unexpected. He had no fever, but was acting really weird. He would not settle down for Brig so I tried. He was mumbling jibberish to me, and every now and then he would say "airplane" or "garage". If I didn't know better I would think he was sleepwalking.

The details are fuzzy b/c we didn't get much sleep that night. Brig may correct me, and I reserve the right to amend this later. I finally got him to sleep but it didn't last long. He was back up soon and the only thing that got him settled was Brig rocking him on the floor. He refused to be held in the rocking chair in his room. Anyway, we started asking him if something hurt. We asked him if his stomach hurt. No. Teeth? No. Then he said, "Ears hurt". He still didn't have a fever, but we immediately gave him Tylenol. He finally went to sleep and slept for a few hours. When he woke up we gave him another dose and he went down a little easier.

We had already decided to take him to Medcare Express when they opened on Sunday. I had been reading about the symptoms of an ear infection and he had all of them. The fever part wasn't always the case. He didn't wake up until 9:30 but Brig and I were ready to go. He was acting pretty good and I didn't tell Brig until later, but I almost suggested we wait and take him to the pediatrician today. I'm really glad we didn't wait.

For starters, Medcare Express is wonderful. It is very nice inside and very clean. The nurses and doctor we saw were very good with Owen. We were the only ones waiting and they called us back before we finished filling out the paperwork. We went into a little room where he was weighed and his vitals were taken. Poor little buddy was down a pound. It has been a struggle to get him to eat these last few weeks.

We were then taken to an exam room. The nurse took him temp (the most accurate way if you know what I mean) and he screamed. Then the sonographer came and took us to get a chest x-ray. Brig and I thought this was a little premature considering he hadn't been examined. He didn't like that at all but it was over quickly. Owen's hand was in the way, so we had to go back and do it again. Fun!

We waited and waited, but the doctor finally came in to examine him. He checked his ears and no surprise, he has an ear infection. The doc asked us to come with him and look at the x-ray. It took him forever to get to the point, but after much explanation he basically had the start of pneumonia. Good news though, the antibiotic will get everything under control.

By the way, I discovered that I'm not at all comfortable looking at the inside of my child. I wasn't sure what he was going to tell us. I was worried he found something more serious. Needless to say, we were very glad they did the x-ray. The doc explained they always do this when a child his age has these symptoms b/c he can't get them to breathe deeply. They also did a breathing treatment to help open his sinuses.

We finally left two hours later, went home, had lunch and put Owen down for a nap. Brig and I napped too and we finally woke him up around 5:00 pm. He was pretty happy last night and went to bed at his normal time. Brig went to check on him around 2:30 this morning and he was awake. I heard him talking over the monitor so I went to see what was happening. We gave him another dose of Motrin and she stayed with him since I had to work today. A side note about Motrin/Tylenol: They told us we should be alternating between the two and that would get his fever under control. We also weren't giving him enough. We were giving him the correct dosage on the bottle, but they gave us a chart based on weight. He can actually have 7ml/1.5 tsp every four hours.

He didn't get up today until 9:30 and so far seems to be better. He was eating pretty well when I called to check on him a little while ago. Hopefully he is on the mend. I will say he held out getting an ear infection longer than we expected. Most of you know my history and all of my ENT problems. Also, I'm not knocking our normal pediatrician. We saw a different doctor last week and he actually said, "Owen doesn't have an ear infection but it doesn't mean he won't have one tomorrow".