My Poor Baby ...

It has been such an emotional roller coaster the last few days.  Cole was not himself last week and we knew he wasn't feeling 100% but Wed night Mark noticed a white spot in Cole's mouth where his molars would be.  I just didn't feel comfortable with the situation so I ran him up the hill to the walk-in clinic.  After almost 3 hours at the office we got the thumbs up that it was probably just a little virus and we were good to go on our trip the next morning.

After a long night of Cole waking up every few hours we got up to go to the airport early on Thursday morning.  While we were in Utah Cole just seemed to not feel well.  Between crying, not eating very well (wouldn't eat more than a few ounces at a time, when it was the norm to eat as much as 12oz in one sitting), and waking every hour at night I knew things weren't going well.  The white spot in his mouth was getting worse and I found another spot that was in a different location.  Mommy instinct told me to take him in to the Pediatric Walk in clinic that is associated with the ped office my sister takes her kiddos to.  There he had a fever of 101.4 and after an examination the doctor decided to pull a CBC, Urinalysis and both a urine and blood culture.  The poor guy had to have both arms poked to be able to get blood.  We were sent home and told it was a virus, and I felt better as this doctor gave me a full explanation of what she saw and what she thought it meant.

We went up the next day to Park City to watch the ski jump aerials and I got the phone call from the ped office that Cole's blood culture came back positive and we needed to get him to the Children's Hospital ER as quickly as possible.  Thank goodness we had 2 cars up at PC so we ushered the big kids into the van and my brother-in-law drove them back to the house for lunch and a movie marathon while my sister drove Mark and I to the hospital.  As I sat in the back seat of the car next to Cole, all I could do was watch him sleep and start praying that he would be okay.

In the ER my little guy was poked and prodded to get an IV into his little chubby hands, they blew 2 veins on one hand and had to get the IV team into the room to finally get it in his other hand (they said he was just so 'healthy' they had to go a little deeper than normal).  He was moved to another room to stay overnight for observation while the 2nd culture was brewing.  Blood tests, multiple xrays, lots of doctors, nurses, and techs, beeping machines, antibiotics, and IV flushes filled the last day of our vacation.

We didn't sleep much that night between the poor guys little mouth sores that made it hard to eat, to sleeping for only an hour at a time because he was hungry.  It was (and still continues to be) a vicious cycle that just broke my heart.

My sister was with me as much as she could, holding and snuggling my little man, and giving me a chance or two to step out of the hospital room to run to the cafeteria and just 'escape' the confines of the 4 walls.

As I sat in our room, which had a window that looked out to the entrance of  the hospital, I had to hold back tears as I watched a little boy and, what I assumed to be, his father walk out to the fountains while dragging along a rolling pole covered in bags of solutions, medicine, electronic monitors, all attached to this little guy.  His bright red shirt didn't lay flat as all the wires attached to his trunk were coming out from underneath and his dad helped him remove his shoes and roll up his pants to wade in the water for a few minutes before heading back into the hospital.  As I turned back around to see my little guy sleeping in his crib I had to thank the Lord that we were here for something treatable and that I could take him home soon.

I am completely exhausted and have to fight back tears when I hold my little man tight as he's crying in pain/hunger/exhaustion but things are getting better every day.

The diagnosis ended up being a version of the Coxsackie virus (which causes hand foot mouth) and, according to my research, he should be on the mend now, but hopefully be back to his smiley little self in another few days.  I have been lucky enough to be able to do some work from home which has been great as I don't have many sick days left at this time, and my boss has been completely supportive.

All in all, it was a crappy vacation.  My little man should NOT have to go through what he went through both in fighting this nasty virus as well as being poked and prodded in the hospital, but I continue to be very thankful that he is just fine and that, unlike so many other children, he got to come home and will be back to his normal self soon.