Well, Thursday, July 22nd, Campbell had been spitting up more than usual. He has acid reflux and we expect him to spit up at least once after his feeding. But that day it was WAY more than usual. In fact, that afternoon, he spit up 10 times after one feeding. I was a little concerned but kept on going about my business. I put Campbell down awake to do something quickly and he went to sleep. OK…THAT IS really strange because he is really doesn’t like to be put down and usually starts crying after a few minutes so the fact that he went to sleep and stayed asleep was not a good sign. When he finally woke up, I checked his temp and it was 101.8. WHAT? He was 7 weeks exactly and I knew that anything over 100.4 was NOT good. I got on the phone and called Dr. Slushers office and left a message for Lori (the nurse). In the meantime, I called Matt and rocked Campbell…trying to NOT flip out! About 30 minutes later, I checked his temp again and it was 99.6 which is great. Soooo now I was confused. I talked to Dr. Slusher and she told us to go straight to the ER because even though the temp went down, it was dangerous that it was up that high to begin with. She told us that they would run tests and to be prepared to stay the night. I called Matt and told him to get home…frantically packed our bags…waited on Matt’s mom to come watch Trigger. We left for the ER and didn’t have to wait too long. He didn’t have any temp there either. The ER dr came in and it was obvious that he thought we were wasting his time! They took some blood to check his white blood cell count and a few other things. They tried to get a urine sample in a little bag but couldn’t so they had to put a catheter in…oh how hard it is to watch your poor baby have painful things done to them! Then, we just sat and waited. Someone else came in the room and told us that they didn’t have enough blood to do the tests so they had to stick Campbell again to get more! After waiting a very long time, the ER dr came back in and said that the blood work looked great but he had talked to the oncall pediatrician (which was not Dr. Slusher) and she had recommended that they do a spinal on Campbell to rule out meningitis. We were a little shocked. AND it was obvious that the ER dr didn’t think that was necessary. When we asked his opinion, he said he wouldn’t do the procedure if it were his child. We asked them to check his temp again and it was still normal. We (actually Matt) signed the papers to decline the procedure. I was so worried that we had not made the right decision. However, I knew there were risks to a spinal and I didn’t think it was worth the risks when Campbell had only had fever that one time.
And, I thought this was strange…they had a computer in the room. I’m sure this program was not suppose to be up while patients are in the room. It did not have the name of the patient (just initials) but had who was in each room, age, and what was wrong (unconscious, fever, et.). It was interesting to see what each person was in there for but I still think that would be against privacy policies!
After we got home, Dr. Slusher called us (I had tried to call her when we were in the ER) back. She was quite unhappy that the ER dr had given us the advice to not have the spinal. She told us to check his temp every three hours and if it went back up above 100.4, to go back to the ER. If it didn’t, we were to take Campbell in to see her at 9 the next morning. Matt went to Walmart and got three different kinds of thermometers. We checked it all night and it never went back up. The next morning, Dr. Slusher had blood work done again. And, after two sticks and LOTS of digging around in Campbell’s arm, the blood work came back great…just like the night before! So we are assuming that he had some kind of virus. WHEW! I’m so thankful that our precious little boy is OKAY!! ER visits are NO fun!
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