Sunday morning came with a beautiful sunrise and clear blue skies...of course! While the day was beautiful and all, it just made it harder to keep the Sabbath Day holy by not water skiing or playing at the beach! We did go to church and attended the local congregation of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints--doubling their attendance! (There are quite a few of us HBs!!) In addition to the sunrise, our youngest woke with a 103 degree fever. It wasn't what we would have wanted for a vacation, but little kids often get little bugs and that's all we thought was going on. We still went to church, keeping our little guy to ourselves as not to keep our older boys from being with all their cousins at church. After Sacrament meeting the Big Guy Lowe and I decided to find a local walk-in clinic to have our little guy's ears checked. He had recently had double ear infections and we had the thought that perhaps they hadn't completely gone away--we had unfortunately had that experience with our middle son and he ended up getting tubes placed in both of his ears. We found the clinic and had our hot little boy looked at. After explaining our concerns about his ears, the doctor promptly inspected them and said they were clear and he was most likely responding to a virus. We left the clinic feeling grateful that his ears were okay, thinking it was a bit strange that the doctor didn't feel the need to check anything other than ears, but somewhat confident that our littlest would be feeling better by the next day.
Did I say "the next day"? Not so.
Monday came with continued fevers that we managed with Tylenol/Motrin keeping them between 102 and 103. Our little guy was miserable. He only wanted to be held by the Big Guy Lowe or me and only seemed to barely tolerate us even then! Oh, and the weather changed. It was now rainy and cold.
Tuesday came with fevers in the morning but finally breaking just before lunch! YEA!! We were so excited and happy. The sun even started coming out and we were planning on heading to the beach with the boys. We did notice that our little guy, while not burning to the touch, hadn't been eating or drinking much. The consequences of this became clear as I tried getting our little guy more comfortable by taking his pants off and noticing that his diaper was completely dry. Up to this point I hadn't been too worried about his fevers as he always had wet diapers--letting me know that he wasn't getting dehydrated. Upon finding the dry diaper I asked the Big Guy Lowe when he had last changed one. He hadn't. We both had assumed that the other had changed his diaper realizing that it had been over eight hours since he had a wet diaper. Can you feel my concern now?
One of my wonderful cousins, Melanie, directed me to the closest clinic in town. After a quick kiss and words of encouragement from the Big Guy Lowe, I headed out to have our little guy looked at again. I quickly found the clinic, but was soon informed that the walk-in hours didn't start until 5:00pm and it was only 3:00. The receptionist must have seen the tears starting in my eyes coupled with my screaming little guy when she added "...but we'll get you taken care of, honey". I was so grateful. A doctor agreed to see us and we only waited about 30 minutes. This doctor, unlike the first, did a full exam. After looking in his throat said that he suspected Strep because his throat and tonsils were so swollen, red and had white pustules. Because they don't offer rapid strep tests in the 'great white north', we opted to go ahead and start an antibiotic instead of waiting 48 hours for a culture to come back. Again, I experienced a slight feeling that we were finally getting somewhere and hoped that our little guy would be feeling better soon.
Did I say "feeling better soon"? He wasn't.
The Big Guy Lowe and I were a determined pair forcing fluids on the miserable little one, but the last thing we wanted was to end up in the Emergency Room. While we were successful in getting a slightly wet diaper by literally forcing the medicine and some fluids, it wasn't helping how he was feeling. Wednesday came with the same routine we had established earlier--the Big Guy Lowe and I would pass our littlest back and forth, trying to console him, hoping he would start feeling better, but never fully kicking the concerned feelings that seemed rooted inside.
Are you feeling our exhaustion yet? Are you feeling our little guy's exhaustion yet? Can you almost hear the constant cry, regardless of the hoops we were trying to jump through? We were still holding out hope that the next day would be better. We had given the antibiotic for over 24 hours, fluids seemed to be going down a bit easier even though we still fought a small battle to ensure this, and small bites of food were consumed by the little guy. All good signs.
"The silver lining of the cloud", you say? We wanted to believe so. Do I need to say that we were wrong...again?!
Thursday came with clear skies promising a beautiful beach day. We had an umbrella set up close to the water. We had brought a small blow-up pool for our littlest so that he could play in water without having the sun over him. We had high hopes. Alas, once again, our plans did not go as we had hoped. We continued our routine of passing the poor, little, miserable one back and forth, walking continuously as that seemed to be the only thing that seemed to distract him from his discomfort. A happy note, our other boys were deliriously happy playing with cousins in the water and sand! I can't imagine how difficult things would have been if the other boys wouldn't have been as happy and involved with everything going on with "Reunion". Nap time finally came and the Big Guy Lowe and I took our two younger boys back to the trailer to sleep. After a short discussion we both agreed that it was time for us to cut our losses and head home early. By the time naps were over and everyone had returned from the beach, we had our camp completely packed and cleaned. While it was sad we were leaving early, there wasn't any question that we had given a good 110% or more in trying to make things work that week.
Just before leaving, the Big Guy Lowe changed our littlest's diaper and called me over with a tone of voice that always makes me concerned and increase my rate of response. Yep, now there was a rash all over our little guy! We said good-bye to everyone that we could, loaded into the Volvo, and headed up to see a doctor for the third time before heading home.
I'm tired writing all of this! If anyone has continued reading this lengthy epistle, I imagine you are tired too, so I will close this now with an update after getting home and seeing our family doctor. The final straw was a Penicillin allergy!
How's that for a fun-filled family vacation? We did everything we could to make things work, but unfortunately things were out of our hands. Gratefully our older boys had a fabulous time, just reinforcing the happiness of "Reunion". Truly though, my house never looked so beautiful as it did at 4:20 Friday morning after driving through the night to get there. My greatest gratitude from the entire experience is knowing that the Big Guy Lowe and I do make a great team, come good or bad. Love you babe!
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1 comment:
Poor little guy.
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