Tough week!

For the second time in his short little life, our sweet baby Malachi is dealing with some sort of illness that has baffled doctors. Let me back up...

3 weeks ago, mommy and Mali went outside for 5 minutes to check on daddy who was weeding the yard. Seems pretty harmless right? Well, the next morning when he woke up, we noticed two small red bumps on him...one on his right temple and one on the top of his head. They were little, but immediately I was thinking either mosquito or spider. We watched them for a few days and nothing bad ever happened, so we thought he just had mosquito bites. After 3 or 4 days, the one on his face almost started to look like a small burn, but the one on his head had all but disappeared. So, we started religiously putting 1% hydrocortizone - the secret to smooth baby skin - on both spots and they eventually started to go away. Fast forward 2 weeks - last Wednesday when he woke up, the spot on his face had gotten irritated and red and the spot on his head was back. So, instead of 1% Hydrocortizone, we used some antibiotic cream trying to figure out what the heck was going on and treat it as best we could. By that evening it was pretty swollen and I told Thomas that if it got any worse, I would call the Dr. Turns out, the next morning, it was MUCH MUCH worse. It looked like a white puss pocket with a red ring around the outside and it was VERY swollen. I just KNEW he had Staph or something, so I immediately called the Dr. When we went in on Thursday, I explained to the Nurse Practitioner what had happened and she asked if she could pull the Dr. in for a consult. She thought it was Staph as well and prepared me just in case we had to lance/drain it. The Dr. came in, and when he heard the story, let me know that he thought it was just a mosquito bite and that somehow the histamine had gotten irritated again somehow and to give Malachi Benadryl. We were sent home with strict instructions to give him 3 doses of Benadryl (6 hours apart) and then call back the next day and let them know an update. When I got home that night and Thomas and I were trying to figure out WHY it took 2 weeks to get so nasty, we started to put 2 and 2 together. We had Malachi on allergy medicine starting right around the time that he got the mosquito bites and we stopped the allergy medicine on the Tuesday night before he woke up Wednesday morning with the reaction that prompted the call to the Dr. So, Benadryl it was! He woke up Friday morning and it did look MUCH better so we figured that was that! NOT SO MUCH!

Friday afternoon around 2:00, my mom called me from the daycare to let me know that he had a fever of 102.7 - taken on 2 different thermometers. I was fixing to call the Dr. anyway, so I called them and let them know what was going on. Again, they wanted me to bring him in. We saw the Nurse Practitioner again, and again, the Dr. came in to look at it just to make sure it was getting better! Since it was, they did a Strep and Flu test. The Strep test came back positive and they gave us the option of giving him a shot or doing 10 days of oral antibiotics. We opted for the shot thinking that the short term pain would be WELL WORTH getting rid of the Strep that much faster. Saturday morning, we got up and took Malachi to Aunt Dena and Uncle Jim's house to watch Malachi because we were having a HUGE garage sale! Aunt Dena called around 12:00 to let me know that Malachi's fever was up to 104, but that he had been asleep so he didn't get his Tylenol/Motrin dose until 45 minutes late. I called her about 30 minutes later and she said it was already back down to 101 so I didn't worry too much. We ended up picking him up around 2:00 and kept him wet/stripped down and fed him lots of pedialyte bottles Saturday night into Sunday. Sunday he was consistently running 103 and his fever wouldn't drop below 102 even right in the middle of a dose of Tylenol or Motrin, which we were rotating every 3 hours. So, again, I called the Dr. They called in Augmentin thinking that the Strep must have been protected by some sort of antibody and that if it wasn't better by Monday morning, the Dr. would probably want to see us again.

So, Monday morning Thomas stayed home and I went to work. But, at noon, he called and said that Malachi was VERY lethargic - couldn't hold his head up and was sleeping a LOT. So, I told them just to come to the Dr. and we'd be there when they got back from lunch. The Dr. immediately did another Strep test to see if this was all we were dealing with and it came back NEGATIVE. We then went back to the mosquito bite, which still hasn't cleared up even today, and the Dr. told us that we were going to have to get some bloodwork drawn and to watch out for stiffness in the neck, problems moving the head...etc. as these may be signs of Encephalitis/Meningitis. He was worried that we may be dealing with a West Nile TYPE of virus. We went and had the bloodwork drawn and I went back to work, thinking that if something did happen, I'd need all the sick leave I have. I only had 2 hours left anyway at that point and Thomas and my mom were going to watch him. He was in good hands!

30 minutes after I got back to work, the nurse called me and told me to get Malachi BACK to the hospital because they found something abnormal in his bloodwork and we would need to get a blood culture done. So, I immediately called Thomas and told him to head back up to the hospital and I would meet them there. While at the hospital, I spoke to the nurse again who told me that we were also going to have to go up to the PICU to get a Rocephin shot, just in case it was a bacterial infection. So, more bloodwork was done and we headed upstairs for the shot. They numbed his leg with Emla cream and gave him a 500mg shot of Rocephin...That's a HUGE dose of Rocephin for a 23 pound baby...

We brought him home and his fever FINALLY broke Monday night at midnight, only to kick back up again Tuesday afternoon. We have kept it under control with Tylenol and Motrin and it broke last night at midnight again and hasn't come back. However, NOW he has a rash ALL OVER his body...Originally I thought it was just a viral rash/strep rash/fever rash, but now that it's actually gotten WORSE today, I don't know WHAT it is. The Dr. said there's nothing we can do at this point except wait for the blood culture and see if it grows anything. Thankfully, though he's sleeping a LOT more than usual, Malachi seems to be feeling much better. He's eating regularly and drinking a ton. So, other than the rash (which doesn't seem to be bothering him) he's almost as good as new. I'm just terrified that the Dr. knows something and isn't telling me...or at least suspects something. I know God knows what He's doing, but when it's your baby, how can you NOT worry? I've spent the last few nights waking up every hour or so to crawl out of bed and hear him breathing in his crib...I've slept beside his crib on the floor for 3 or 4 hours at a time just for comfort and I've cried more than I have since the LAST time he was so sick and we didn't know why!

This too shall pass - I know...but I'm so ready for him to be better and for us to KNOW what's wrong! It's the unknown that's the worst!! Please Lord - protect my baby and heal his sweet little body...I'd give my life if I thought it would help!