I hate this blog post. I hate that this happened. But I'm thankful for my faith in God, and the power of prayer, and my AMAZING husband. I'm thankful that everything happens for a reason, that we weren't opening a new chicken express store yesterday as planned. And I'm thankful we aren't in Houston where we would have had no family to help us out.
We've known for over a week that Levi hasn't been acting like himself. 12 days ago, I took him to the doctor because he'd run a 102 fever the day before. Ears were fine, throat was a little irritated but probably from allergies. The following Saturday he started not sleeping well, waking up screaming and thrashing. That lasted 4 nights, along with way too many temper tantrums for his norm. And the crying.....oh the crying.... it just wouldn't stop! I took him to the doc last Wednesday because I felt like something was wrong, I just couldn't tell you what. Once again, ears fine, throat still a little red....but nothing beyond that we could find. They prescribed a steroid to try and decrease inflammation in his throat to see if that would help.
He started to sleep better, and wasn't quite as temperamental....but still not his normal. On Friday, I noticed as we were running errands that he was very uncomfortable as I put him in and out of the car seat. Like I was hurting him? When we got home, it was the potty. He wanted to climb up on the stool and not for me to pick him up. That's not our usual routine. I asked him if something hurt, and he said his shoulder. I started thinking about what could be wrong and thought maybe a collar bone break! The more I watched him I could see he was favoring that arm. That's it!!! Who needs an M.D.?? I'm his momma and I'd diagnosed him!
That was already about 1ish so I anxiously awaited the pediatrician reopening after lunch. I was getting this thing x-rayed TODAY! She saw him, and said while it would be strange without an injury we could remember....it was possible. It was obvious to her as well that it was hurting.
And we did......here's sissy hanging out at the hospital while we waited.
We took him for some much deserved chuck. E. cheese afterwards of course. They called with results and informed us that all the X-rays were normal. Hmph...... You mean my M.D. is worthless? Ok....we'll update you Monday morning.
Saturday, Trent and I desperately needed to go shop for Chloe's bday since she MUST (sometimes I think God likes to show me who's boss!) have a present on her actual birthday. Mom and dad kept the kiddos while we did some very quick shopping and had a mini date at a really cool sushi conveyor belt restaurant!
This man is my ROCK
Saturday night we noticed that the swelling had gotten worse, it was a little swollen on Friday but not this noticeable.
By Sunday I had decided that we were leaving at 7:30 am Monday morning and we were going to be at the pediatricians office when they opened. At this point, I KNEW something was wrong and I wasn't coming home until I knew what it was.
When we called them, they told us to go straight to cook children's emergency room. He had a fever of 101 that morning when he woke up. We'd been giving him Motrin every 6 hours over the weekend to try and help with the pain, but I had been taking his temp in between doses. Motrin definitely made him less of a monster. He hadn't run a fever all weekend. She said he was going to need more testing that they couldn't do in the office anyway so we might as well go to the best children's hospital.
We didn't have to wait in the er because they had called ahead and told them we were coming. It was also 9am monday morning, haha. They drew blood (after 3 failed IV attempts) and another X-ray. White blood cell count was not elevated but inflammatory levels were a little, X-ray was normal again. The IV team later came and got that done. That's all they do ALLLLLL day, insert children's IVs. Talk about specialized...and they were fantastic! No fiddle fartin around. Get it done right and FAST.
Trying to catch a quick snooze in the er.
It was determined by the infectious disease doctor that he needed to be admitted for an MRI to check for infection of the bone or joint. (Did you know that's a joint? I didn't, until Jim told us Sunday night!)
I decided to go home to see Chloe since the MRI wasn't scheduled until 12pm today. Levi missed her yesterday....he asked one of the nurses "where's Coe go?" So we FaceTimed them this morning.
I left gainesville about 9:15 and headed for Ft. Worth. Trent texted at like 10:15 and said MRI was coming to get him. I totally lost it in the car. At his age he had to be sedated for this. There are always risks with that and even though complications are rare....there is a risk. I drove not the speed limit to get here ASAP. We'd already decided that I wouldn't go back with him anyway because I don't hold my composure well when someone is "torturing" my baby. Trent is much stronger and I didn't want to make it worse for sweet cheeks. BUT I desperately wanted to see him before this.
Shortly after I got there, Trent came out and said they'd gotten him sedated. We were told it would be about an hour and a half. 45ish minutes for the scan and then some time before and after for sedation purposes. About 2 hours later Trent asked about him. They told us he had 15 minutes left on his scan. To us that meant 30ish more minutes? Another 45 minutes went by with no word. We asked again....we were told they had to do more scans so he had 10 minutes of scan left. The anesthesiologist finally came and updated us. He told us that he had vomited after they put the tube in....which is a blessing because it could have been really bad if it had been before the tube. I'm sure that delayed their start some. Then he said that they had to take many more pictures than they expected, the nurses told him it was the longest shoulder they had done. He went back to check again and said he was finished and would be headed to recovery. We were pretty scared at this point because we didn't know why so many scans. (We still don't know.) After another excruciatingly long hour, we FINALLY got to see him. They had told us that his chest tube was out and he was breathing on his own....but that he was still sleeping. We just wanted to see him and hold him sooooooo bad. I'm sure they talked about us in radiology later....bc we asked the desk about 10 times to check on him. But by this point....irrational momma/papa bear instincts were kicking in. We knew they would be giving him a breathing treatment afterwards because of his asthma. They said sometimes it can trigger asthma because its something foreign in his airway. Once again something that led to the most miserable FOUR HOURS of our LIVES.
Our prayers were answered though, and the infection is only in the joint and not the bone. This means far less aggressive antibiotic treatment. Well, far shorter at least. We have not seen our infectious disease doc yet, we will see him in the morning so we don't really know when we'll get to go home yet. (Yes, I said infectious disease. He's confined to this room and under contact restrictions so everyone who comes in wears these big yellow gowns.)
Once he fully woke up and relaxed a little, he was thrilled to dig in his little present that a friend from church dropped off. He was also very anxiously awaiting the nurses to tell him he could dig into his edible arrangement from aunt batesie!
He's in great spirits as long as we keep Motrin or Tylenol in his system. He's been so brave and so big. He really likes that daddy tells him what the nurses or doctors will be doing when they come in.
Daddy went home to be with Chloe tonight and wish her a wonderful birthday tomorrow morning! Nana....who has been a LIFESAVER.... is taking her to her one year check up while daddy tends to all the craziness at work he's been away from for the last 2 days. We aren't "celebrating" Chloe's birthday until her big brother gets home and we can do it all as a family. Luckily she doesn't know the difference.
Thank you all so much for your prayers during these really long 2 days. They are MUCH APPRECIATED!
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