In Which We Head To The Hospital And Get Some Answers

So today didn't go particularly well.  But at least we have an explanation for what's been going on recently with the little guy!

So I got a call from Connor's school this morning around 10:30 to come and pick him up.  He'd had a couple of seizures and just wasn't recovering very well, so we figured he'd better sleep it off at home.  Shortly after we got back to the house he had two more in rapid succession.  I took his temperature and it read 101.3 degrees. 

The mysterious fever was back.

Four seizures in two hours was not a good sign.  I gave him a dose of Tylenol and then started weighing my options.  After trying and failing to get an immediate appointment with his pediatrician, I left a message on the triage nurse's machine about what was going on and that if I didn't hear back pretty quickly we'd be headed to the ER.  She called me back shortly thereafter and told me to go ahead and take him to the hospital to get him checked out.

So off to the emergency room we went.

Connor had a tiny, five-second or so seizure just as we walked in the door.  Then he fell asleep in my lap in the waiting room.  After we were shown back to our room in the ER, the doc ordered blood work, took a look in Connor's ears and mouth and then took a throat swab.  The verdict came back twenty minutes later.  The little guy had a nasty case of strep throat.

Problem found.

They said his white blood cell count was through the roof, so he'd either had it a while or just had a really nasty case of it.  Of course I felt horribly guilty that I had no idea; I'm sure he hasn't been feeling good for a while, and he might have been spiking fevers all week that I just didn't catch.  Poor little boo-- no wonder he's been clingy in the past few days.

So we stayed in the hospital for a while as they figured out what his treatment plan was going to be.  While we were waiting his Tylenol started to wear off and he had another seizure, so they gave him another dose along with a solid helping of Ativan.  Then they gave him a shot of an drug called Rocephin, which is a seriously heavy-duty antibiotic.  They sent us home with a ten-day prescription for Omnicef, which is another antibiotic.  Hopefully those two drugs will do the trick.

So while I wasn't excited about spending the whole day in the hospital and I'm sorry that Connor is sick, I am glad that the doctors found a simple problem that was easily fixable.  That doesn't happen very often in our household; usually we're the Medical Mystery Clan around here.  Of course, I did spend the rest of the day completely paranoid about how my throat was feeling because strep is one of those lovely contagious sort of bugs, but that's okay.  At least if I do end up with strep, we'll know what it is right away and won't end up waiting a week or two before figuring it out.

After we were discharged and came home little guy pretty much conked out.  I hope all the sleep is healing for him and he's feeling better soon!

~Jess