The next day he started refusing his pacifier and didn't want to eat or drink. We were gone most of the day, and when we got home in the evening, as I was giving him some tylenol, I noticed that his tongue had white patches on it. My first thought was that it was Strep, so I took him back into Urgent Care to check for that. They looked in his mouth for about 2 seconds, and told me he had Thrush. They gave me a prescription for Nystatin and sent me on my way. We started the medication that night. We had to give it to him 4 times a day, and every time we had to pin him down and force it into his mouth. Most of the time, he would throw it right up.
As the week went on, he just got worse. He would not eat or drink anything, and he cried in pain all the time. We let him sleep in our room in the chair, and all night long was a constant fight to keep him comfortable enough to sleep for 1/2 hour intervals. He continued to run a fever, and we watched him get weaker and weaker. He spent every minute in our chair, day and night, in and out of fitful painful sleep.
On Wednesday, I'd had enough. The medicine for Thrush wasn't working, and I was seriously worried about Owen being dehydrated. Scott called the Pediatrician's office while I was at Sara's school party, and left a message. They called us back at 5, so it was too late to take Owen in to be seen that day. The nurse told us we should take Owen back in to Urgent Care to get IV fluids, and set up an appointment for him the next morning with his pediatrician.
I left to take the kids trick or treating, fully expecting to then come home and spend the rest of the night with my baby in the hospital hooked up to IVs. But, when I got back home, Scott told me he had gotten Owen to drink a sippy cup (thanks to the numbing effect of some Tylenol with Codeine that we had left over from when he had Hand/Foot/Mouth). Knowing that he had gotten some fluids in him, we decided to skip urgent care that night, and just wait for the doctor's appointment in the morning.
The next morning Scott came with me to the Owen's doctor's appointment. The pediatrician took the time to listen to everything we'd been through that week, and examined Owen and told us that it was not Thrush. It was the initial onset of the cold sore virus (Herpes). As soon as he said it, I remembered when Josh had it when he was three. I probably would have made the connection earlier on my own, if I hadn't been told we were treating something else. Basically, Owen's entire inside of his mouth was covered in open sores. The pediatrician told us there was nothing we could do to fix it (it's just a virus that has to run it's course), but we could try to make Owen as comfortable as we could in the meantime. He prescribed a heavy dose of Tylenol with Codeine, and told us we probably still had another three days of Owen being sick.
Knowing it wasn't Thrush, we no longer had to force Nystatin down Owen's throat, for which we were all grateful for. We did still have to force pain medication down him, though, and he didn't appreciate that. He was so protective of his mouth, because it was so painful. But, if we could get a decent amount of pain medication in him, he would perk up enough to drink a sippy cup or two, so we no longer had to worry about dehydration.
No comments:
Post a Comment