Home of the Four Trans

There are so many things to update on, but, I suppose the most pressing news is that Justin is holding a fever of about 100-101 degrees F, and has been to the ER twice in the past 2 days.

I noticed a fever and clinginess at about 7PM Saturday, after coming home from a birthday party. I decided not to freak out, took off his clothes, and took his temperature every 5-10 minutes. The temperature fluctuated between 100-101. There was a point when it went up to 101.9, so I called his Infectious Diseases doctor to call into the ER before heading over there. By that time, it was already 9:30PM.

Luckily, the ER was slow that night, enabling us to get in in a record 10 minutes after filling out paperwork. The fact that the doctor called in did not affect how long we wait in the ER; he warned me that he’d have NO CONTROL over how long it’d take for Justin to get a bed. He’d only get him in the system and discuss the protocol with the doc on duty. Regardless, after getting in, we spent about 5 hours in the ER before being discharged. But, we were discharged!

The usual blood draws for a blood culture, CBC, and CRP were done to look for signs of any bacterial infection. A chest x-ray was also done to check for pneumonia and fluid in the heart. All signs pointed toward a viral infection, but, we did not know the results of the blood culture, which would not be ready until the following day.

We had gotten home around 4AM, Justin’s fever had gone down, and we were able to rest easier.I had even taken Nathan to my Grandma’s house to pray for my deceased aunts, uncles, and Grandpa. We managed to stay out all day, and didn’t get home until 8PM. Loi was home with Justin. That night, the ID doc even called to see how Justin was doing, and Loi was proud to report that he was fine.

This morning, however, I got a call from the ER department telling me that the blood culture came back positive, and that I needed to come in right away for treatment. I called the ID doc first to see if Justin could be treated with him, but the clinic was closed. The ID doc was paged, and I was told that he’d call me back to tell me what to do. An hour had gone by, and still no phone call from doc so I started getting anxious knowing how fatal sepsis could be, if in fact Justin had sepsis. I called his office, again, and they told me to just wait for his phone call. 

OK, I am a mom with an asplenic baby who has a fever and a positive blood culture and I’m supposed to just wait? I am not an impatient person, but when it comes to my child’s life, the concept of waiting does not make sense. I headed out to the ER.

Before heading in, I called Justin’s pediatrician to get his advice. He told me to be safe than sorry and just check in while waiting for ID doc’s phone call. So, I did, and waited for 1 hour before a bed was made available to us. What’s worse is that the ID doc did call me, ten minutes after checking in, and I missed his call because the cell reception was so horrible! The message was: it is not necessary to take him into the ER, and that he only wanted another blood culture done. I could have gotten this done within 30 minutes at a lab! Instead, I waited for 1 hour for a bed, then another 3 hours before we were discharged! The ER was super busy with lots of sick kids and adults. 

Both the ped and ID doc had told me that the results from the first blood culture looked like a contaminant false positive because it was not consistent with the results of his other blood work. 

We are home, now, and Justin is his usual self. Again, we are waiting for the blood culture results, which should be available tomorrow. I am, as expected, very anxious to hear from the doc.

As I pray for Justin, I am also planning to see how I could be more efficient the next time around. I’ve already discussed with his pediatrician, and he was OK with me bringing Justin directly to him next time if the results did show a positive. Seriously, I was freaking out, even if it didn’t show on the outside because I did not understand how quickly the bacteria could spread, and I just wanted to keep my child safe. The scary thing is, I don’t think anyone could tell me how quickly the bacteria could spread. I’ve asked this question, and the docs have told me, “quickly,” and that it is an urgent matter that he be properly treated. Anyway, just doing the best I can, and praying that it’s good enough.

Please pray for our little Justin. Thank you!

This entry was posted on Monday, April 20th, 2009 at 11:57 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.