Caden's Hospital fun

So here is the scoop. Sunday during our weekend in Corpus Christi Caden felt a little bit warm to me, but I didn't think much of it because we had pushed him so hard the day before (no naps and not much sleep that night). We got home Sunday evening and Monday morning he felt a little warm, his temp was 99.8. Tuesday his temp was 101.5 and he couldn't keep anything down that morning. Wednesday, August 20th, his temp was 103.3 and he started throwing up again. I got a doctor's appointment for him and dropped Nathan off at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

The pediatrician I saw said she wouldn't be worried about just his temp if he was acting fine, but he was so lethargic, he wouldn't move unless I moved him. So she sent us to the ER to get some more tests run. Scott and my Dad met us there. It was my Dad that first noticed that the right side of his neck was swollen and the ER Doc immediately ordered x-rays and a CT scan. They found an early abscess. Basically an abscess that is forming but isn't complete yet. It was in one of his lymph nodes in his neck. They started him on two antibiotics and took a lot of blood to try and figure out what kind of bacteria was giving him the infection. It was horrible. They also did a lumbar puncture on him to make sure it wasn't meningitis. After the first night there his neck more than doubled in size. Basically the antibiotics weren't getting to the infection. He was one sick little boy. They had to put him on steroids to break down the walls of the abscess just enough to push the antibiotics through. Friday morning saw a huge decrease in the swelling and his fever gone. They let him go home on Saturday with oral nasty tasting antibiotics. While we were in the hospital his IV would go bad every 12 hours almost on the dot. He ended up having an IV in both arms and both ankles. They would try to draw blood and it would take them 30 minutes to find a vein just to not get enough because the vein would quit working only to come back a few hours later to try again. We were so exhausted by the time we left. Needless to say I didn't document that visit.

Caden finished his oral antibiotics on Monday, September 1, and Thursday of that week Scott and I noticed Caden's neck swelling up again. Friday Cade had a follow up with his pediatrician and I told her about the swelling. She got on the phone with a bunch of other doctor's and ended up readmitting him to the hospital. They didn't want it to get to the point it had last time. They say that the bacteria he has looks similar to cat scratch fever, but it isn't that. This time, since Caden was so well, I decided to take some pictures of him in his cute little gown.

This is while we were waiting for the hospital to get us a room.

See Mom, I am sick!

There was a linen closet in our room that Caden quickly found.

Cute hubby on the phone with his folks.

They did another CT scan and it had become a full abscess. Since they had already tried the antibiotics and it had still become worse, they decided to go ahead and cut into Cade's neck and drain it. That was on Saturday, September6th. The Surgeon said there was a lot of dead tissue and pus and that there was no way antibiotics would have killed it, it had to be drained. He cleaned out the entire lymph node and we hope that takes care of it. It was a minor surgery but they had to put him completely under. These next pitures were taken about an hour after the surgery was over. Can you believe the kid just had surgery!

That is gauze on his neck covering the incision and a pin rose, it looks like a tiny PVC pipe that they put in to let the abscess continue to drain.

Nathan and I trying to catch some Zzzzz's.

Cade snuggling with Grandma and eating cheerios.

Sunday Nathan and Dad brought our Sunday breakfast tradition of pancakes!

Cade loves pancakes.

Monday we douns out that we had one more day at least left in the hospital to let the abscess continue to drain and to keep him on IV antibitoics. This is a shot I got of him doing his cheesy fake smile that he started giving us in the hospital.

He loves anything with a small handle; silveryware, hammer's, shovels, etc.

They let us go home on Tuesday on more oral antibiotics. They left the incision open to continue to drain. Needless to say, we are exhausted. The doctors never figured out what bacteria Caden had, but there is a chance it is something called A-typical micro bacterium. If it is that his neck will probably swell up again within the next 6-12 weeks and his lymph node will probably have to be removed. But as of right now we are just going on the assumption that what ever it is is gone and we are done.