Scrappy Times: A twist of fate

July did not unravel the way that I had planned it to. I enrolled Caleb in the First Steps program and planned for him to spend Tuesdays and Thursdays there from 9-2. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays I thought we would spend our days swimming and trying to find fun ways to beat the heat. Weekends are usually a grab bag. We seem to spend a lot of time travelling to my parent's house or spending time at various family members houses. Then there's the task of finding a church. We've been on the hunt for a new church for quite a while now. I've been praying about it for probably 3 years. We like a lot of things about our old church, Hillcrest Baptist, but it is really far from our current home-30 minutes at best, and we'd like to find something in our immediate community. Anyway....

I took Caleb to the Dr. on July 7th because he was running a fever and had thrown up. The Dr. said it was tonsillitis and gave us an antibiotic. In the past when he's had tonsillitis after 1 or 2 doses of the antibiotic he was feeling much better. That was not the case this time. He ran a pretty high fever all week even with taking Advil and Tylenol and the antibiotic. John took him back to the Dr. on the 10th because he didn't seem to be getting any better and he had also thrown up a few times. Our regular pediatrician wasn't there so we saw a different dr. and she ran a test for strep. It came back negative and she seemed to think Caleb might have something called Kawasaki disease because of some of the other symptoms that had shown up later in the week. He had swollen lymp nodes, red eyes, a high fever, and a rash on his hands and feet. She referred us to Children's hospital. We headed over there to the ER. After 4 doctors looked at him they decided he had a bad viral infection. We felt a surge of relief when we were told that it wasn't Kawasaki, but I told John on the way home that I hoped that the drs. at Children's were right as opposed to his pediatrician. How do you know who is right? Is one dr. smarter than the other? Are the drs. at Children's the experts? These were the thoughts going through my mind on the way home. Another week went by and Caleb didn't seem measurably better. I took him back to his pediatrician on the 20th because he was still running fever and had also started limping. His pediatrician said that he hadn't been satisfied with Children's diagnosis and he sent us to Charlton to get an Echo cardiogram done. Gee thanks-wish he'd told us that when we'd left Children's. Kawasaki disease causes swelling around the heart. After the echo was read they determined that Caleb did have Kawasaki, so we checked into Medical City hospital on July 20th so that Caleb could have the treatment for Kawasaki done, which is an IV of hemoglobin. Definitely not a fun experience watching your 2 year old being held down to get an IV. We did another Echo there and there was just a small amount of swelling and the cardiologist didn't think there would be any long term problems. We were released the next day around noon. Caleb is still not 100%. In fact we went back to the pediatrican this morning because he's having a lot of pain in his joints and has still been running a fever. Apparently that is still consistent with Kawasaki and the fact that it wasn't treated early enough-that part really sucks since we took him to the dr. not once, but twice that first week.

We also cancelled our plans for our 7th anniversary. John had a food show in Monterey, CA and I opted not to go since Caleb was still running a fever and not up to speed. I had been looking forward to getting away with John. Caleb did end up spending a couple of days with my Mom on the 27th and 28th so we did at least get to go out to dinner once John got home from CA.

We head back to the cardiologist tomorrow for a checkup and another echo. I'm hoping that the coronary arteries are back to normal and that there are no long term effects from this thing.
And since I record just about everything, here are a few pics of Caleb in the hospital. John got him this scuba diver in the hospital and Caleb named him Scuba Rusty-not sure where he came up with that name.

Here he is checking Scuba Rusty's blood pressure: