On the Sunday before Memorial Day Max woke up from his nap with a fever. We gave him some Tylenol and hoped that he would recover before the long weekend was over. Unfortunately, his fever didn't go away. The Tuesday after the holiday was my first day at my new job so Rick decided to stay home. He took Max to the pediatrician and we were told to keep an eye on his fever and bring him back in if the fever doesn't go away after a couple of days. We kept him home on Wednesday and by Thursday I took him to the doctor again since his fever still hasn't broken. This time, the doctor did a strep culture and checked his ears again for a possible ear infection. Both were negative. That weekend we took our trip to Vancouver and Max had a high fever on both days. I was especially worried on Sunday when his fever was high all day. During this whole time, Max was really sluggish and had low appetite. It just broke my heart to see him not eating and losing weight. We took Max to the pediatrician again and this time they took blood work. The results showed an elevated white cell count which could be the result of either viral or bacterial infection. The pediatrician requested that we get a chest x-ray for Max to rule out pneumonia. The chest x-ray turned out to be negative. The next day, Rick took Max to the pediatrician to get a urine sample. The poor child was dehydrated so they couldn't get any liquid out of him. Rick was really upset about spending 2 hours at the doctor's office and not getting anywhere closer as to why Max has had a fever for 10 days. We were in a holding pattern for the next 2 days and by Friday, I really wanted to get Max checked out again before the weekend so I took him in one more time. The doctor was still stumped and did all the routine exams again. She urged that we take Max to the ER at Children's hospital to get more tests. I really didn't want to spend a night at the ER but I was also feeling really uneasy about Max being sick for so long. So Ricky's parents watched Jalen while the two of us took Max to Children's hospital. They examined him, did blood work, took urine sample and swabs. After all that, we were no closer to knowing why he's had a fever for almost 2 weeks but at least the doctor didn't raise any alarms that there might be something really serious going on. We spent another day waiting for results and on Sunday, we took him into the office again and this time, it seemed like he has developed an ear infection. The doctor finally prescribed some antibiotics. His fever finally subsided Sunday night and he was fever free for 24 hours for the first time on Monday. During this entire ordeal Ricky's parents helped us by watching Max at our house. We were so grateful that they did this because we don't know what we would've done instead. Especially with me at my new job, I would have really been in a bind. So after all was said and done, here's the tally:
- number of days with fever over 101: 14
- number of visits to the pediatrician: 5
- number of hours spent at the ER: 3.5
- number of doctors seen: 4
- number of failed urine test attempts: 4
- number of blood tests: 2
Max was actually very sweet and good at the ER. We kept him busy with crackers and we watched the Lion King on TV.
A happy side effect of Max being sick was that he was super cuddly. He just wanted to be hugged and held all the time.
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