Virus - Day 1

After the super fun birthday party last night I was putting Mase to bed & he felt a bit warm to me. Call it Mama's intuition but I knew immediately he had a fever. I took his temp & it was 99.4 degrees. He has been cutting his very last tooth - a monster of a molar - so I attributed it to this & went about our usual nightly routine.

We all went to sleep as usual & I was awoken by a crying/whimpering little boy around 3am. Went in to check on him & he was burning up hot! Took his temp to find this:

Ugh - way too high of a temp to be cutting a molar! He was also complaining of his left ear hurting so I assumed he was getting an ear infection & we would be making a trip to urgent care in the morning. Why oh why do illnesses have to happen on the weekends?? Weekends are supposed to be our family-fun-time! Poor little bubba.

 

I dosed him with Tylenol & he came into bed with Mama & Daddy & the little guy slept until 10am. He never sleeps past 7am so I knew he was sick. He continued to have a fever & ear pain when he woke up so off to urgent care we went. The nurse practitioner seeing him said she really couldn't see his eardrum in that left ear due to too much wax so since he was complaining of ear pain she went ahead & sent us home with an antibiotic & told us to follow up with the pediatrician on Monday. For whatever reason I was unsettled by this diagnosis. He has had no cold, no congestion, no drainage, his neck is extremely swollen & ends up with this acute ear pain? Doesn't sound like an ear infection to Mama!

 

Well the weekend continued on & Mase seemed to be getting worse. Not only did he still have a high fever, still had the ear pain, the left side of his neck was still extremely swollen & super sensitive to touch. He couldn't lay flat to sleep so he slept pretty much sitting up. We battled this ALL. WEEKEND. LONG. My gut told me something wasn't right. After being on antibiotics for 48 hours he should be starting to feel better but instead he was feeling worse.

Monday morning came & we all headed into the pediatrician's office to be seen first thing in the morning. Turns out Mama's intuition was right! He didn't have an ear infection after all but an infected lymph node on the left side of his neck. It was the size of a golf ball & was putting pressure on the ear canal which put pressure on his ear drum causing him horrible pain. We were instructed to come back the next afternoon if his status was unchanged & still had a fever. I went ahead to work after the appointment & Daddy stayed home with our sick little guy.

Tuesday afternoon he was still running a 100 degree temp - for the 4th day in a row. Back to the doctor we went. Ended up switching his antibiotic to something a bit stronger & instructed to return to see an ENT doctor on Thursday if he wasn't getting better. Daddy stayed home with him again today while Mama went to work. When I got home this is how Mase was :(



Ugh - I can not tell you how seeing this little guy sick & in pain will hurt your heart. Most. Painful. Thing. Ever.

to be continued...