It all started back at the end of April, Jeff's dad had a heart attack and had surgery to clear blockage on one side only to find out that the other side is 90% blocked. Then within a few days of that, my grandmother was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer and has elected not to have any treatment. So just as we were hit with a bunch of bad news, Parker wakes up feeling warm. Of course, I put off taking his temp thinking it's just the warmth of a newborn and go about our day. I take Peyton to McDonalds with plans to go the grocery store afterwards. I realize after lunch that I have forgotten my list and have to go home first. I get home and decide that Parker definitely feels warmer and just isn't himself, so I take his temp and much to my surprise, it's 102. I call the pediatrician and they say that any baby under 8 wks with a temp above 101 needs to go to the ER and will be admitted.
Of course this freaks me out and with repeated attempts to get ahold of Jeff (who is at work) I'm unsuccessful and get ahold of my mom to come with me. While sitting in the ER I feel really dumb for asking my mom to come, all the while thinking "you're an adult now, grow up and start doing things by yourself". (I rely on my mom for everything!) Anyway, as the pediatric dr. comes in and proceeds to tell me that my 6 wk old needs to have a urine test (via a catheter), a few blood tests, an IV inserted, AND a spinal tap done, I start bawling and am never more glad to have my mom with me!!! If you're a mom, I'm sure you can just imagine how heartwrenching it is to watch and listen to your baby go through all this, esp when they have to do the spinal tap twice and the IV took 6 failed attempts until we said "That's enough! Find another way to give him antibiotics". So he was given an antibiotic shot every 24hrs for 3 days.
After spending Sat and Sunday there we were under the impression that if the 24 hr cultures came back negative that we would be able to go home late Sunday. Well, not so. Apparently the CHOP drs differ on opinions as to when the babies should be allowed to go home. It turns out that after about 30 hrs or so, the cultures came back positive for Strep A (strep throat virus), but his was in his blood rather than actually forming Strep throat. BUT, they weren't sure if the test had been contaminated by bacteria either from someone's skin in the lab or from Parker's skin, so they had to repeat the test to make sure it wasn't anything more serious. So we had to spend ANOTHER 24hrs there till the results of that test came back. Finally on Tues morning we were able to come home after 4 long days in one tiny room. He was on antibiotics for 14 days after he came home and is doing much better! The poor little guy went through so much in his first 7 wks. Not only did he have to go through all that at the hospital, he has really bad acid reflux and we are now working on our 2nd kind of medicine to see if this helps any better.
Here are some pics of him in the hospital
The cords are a monitor that he has hooked to him to watch his heart and oxygen levels. He did so great in the hospital and was busy flirting with his mommy and all the nurses!
This swing was a life saver! He slept in it and bought me a couple of hours of sleep myself.
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