A Rough Week for Aubrey

Oh, my.  It has been a rough week for Aubrey. It started last Saturday.  He started the sneezing, which I knew was going to lead to coming down with the "munge" that a lot of us had going on.  Later that day, close to dinner, Isabella was going to make some tea.  The boys asked for some as well.  Two things went wrong in the process.  She was told that the boys' tea did not need to be boiling, but she wanted her's steeping hot, and failed to pour off their water before it started to boil.  I don't think this was intentional, she just forgot to keep an eye on it.  Then, as the tea was steeping, well away from the edge of the counter (I have always stressed, and taught the importance of keeping hot items away from the edge of a counter, and to do things like keep pot handles turned inwards toward the wall, etc.), Jeremiah needed to do something at the counter.  He moved the teas forward, and placed all, but one back when he was finished.  He's not sure if he got distracted, or what happened (it could have been another child), as he put all the other cups back, but the combo lead to Aubrey pulling down a mug of burning hot, steeping tea all down the front of himself.  Thankfully two other things helped in the lessening of the damage.  One, I was just a few steps away from him when it happened, and Saoirse happened to be at the sink getting some water.  I yelled to her to grab the sprayer and spray Aubrey, as I tried as quickly as I could to get off his clothing.  Unfortunately it took me longer to get to his diaper, and that is where the hot water settled.  The poor thing got a nasty (1st and 2nd degree) burn on his lower abdomen, where the water had seeped into the diaper and was against his skin.  Thankfully at the same time, that hot water didn't get on any of his more delicate parts!!  Phew!

My kitchen was quickly turning into Lake Superior, which I could have cared less about at the time.  However, as I trying to move Aubrey closer to the sink, I was slipping and sliding all over the place.  Jeremiah grabbed Aubrey, where we got him into the tub, and started running cold water over him from there, and we were able to fill the tub as well, so eventually, when it got high enough, he was able to lay tummy side down in the cold water.  I got a quick glimpse at him as we were getting him in the tub, but I was seriously afraid to look again.  At the time a large percentage of his chest and abdomen were red/pink.  Thankfully most of that went down to a light pink after being totally submerged, and eventually cleared up about 15 minutes or so later.  But we could tell that his lower belly was much worse off.  We debated about whether he needed to go to the ER, but we felt it would be safer to get him checked out.

We were blessed with no waiting!  From the time he actually got burned until we got home from the ER was only 2 and a half hours.  Which is saying something since the ER is close to 20 minutes away.  They gave him some medicated cream, and we have to apply it twice a day (with a quick washing and dressing change each time).  He seemed pretty well off the following day.  The morning was the worst as far as pain, though he was on round the clock pain meds (motrin/tyenol).  It was the following day after that was the worst as far as pain!  Oh, my.  It took a while to find the right combination to keep him comfortable.  The ticket was an extra long bandage, putting the tape in certain spots and cutting a huge chunk of his diaper off (as opposed to us just folding it down).  The big ticket, only came yesterday/today, buying what we call 'vet wrap', which is the stick-to-itself-gauze-like tape stuff :-)  But that didn't help us out those first few days.  It was very hard to deal with at times.  But thankfully, each day his burn has looked better and better.  Today, he had no pain with his dressing change and washing.  BUT, that wasn't before he had taken a turn for the worse with his illness!

After our Thanksgiving meal, Aubrey took a nap.  A 3 hour nap!  Sounds good, except that he's only been taking one hour naps of late.  I had my suspicions raised for sure.  He did indeed come down with the full blown munge like I thought he would, but this was 5 days into it....hmmm.  About an hour after he woke he felt warm to the touch.  Ugh.  As the night went on his fever got worse, as is usual for kids and fevers.  Come the middle of the night though it got really high, and he wasn't able to sleep, but not in the way most kids act (usually tossing and turning).  He was very still, and lay there starring in one direction.  I'm not sure if he fell asleep with his eyes open, or if he was seeing things, but every once in a while he would say something crazy, like, "Mommy?  Why did you push that man?"  Huh?!

The next day I was expecting his fever to go down, like it should, except that it didn't!  It came down a wee bit, but that was with medication, and even then, it didn't last long.  This was definitely a red flag.  Not to mention that this very high fever didn't match up to his ongoing symptoms (the cough and runny nose, he already had for 5 days).  He complained about it hurting when he went p*e.  I gave him some cranberry juice as a precautionary, but I wasn't sure if it had more to do with the high fever, or his bladder itself.  Which is why I decided to wait that day out.  The problem was getting him to drink the cranberry juice.  Although we got some into him, at that point, I think the problem was already out of hand.

I knew by that evening that things were looking bad. I had that bad mommy feeling.  We were putting up our Christmas tree and the whole entire time he just sat/lay on the couch bundled up, just watching us...not even talking!  There's sick, and then there's *SICK*.  He was the later.  Getting through that night was hard, as with motrin/tyenol, his fever remained high.  I got him to drink some fluids in the middle of the night, as I was getting worried about dehydration (though he had no signs of that, I know it can happen quickly once it does start happening).  I would have put him in the tub to soak up more water, but with his burn he would have none of that.  Come morning I knew we needed to head to urgent care (it was Saturday).

Wouldn't you know that when we got there he had no fever!!!  Wha?!!  Everything looked fine, though the doctor could not do a urine test, so she prescribed an antibiotic, just in case.  I got it filled, but figured I would wait and see what happened.  Did his fever finally break?  Or was this the calm before the storm.  I have had two other children, who were too  young to talk that came down with fevers, that didn't match their symptoms, that had that calm before the storm.  BUT, once that storm hit in full force they were very, very sick.  Saoirse actually started going septic and required IV antibiotics.  I was down that road twice, which is two times too many, thank you very much!  On top of it, even with the antibiotics those two remained very ill for at least another 3 days.  The other reason I decided to wait was that when I walked in the door, after coming back from the doctors, one look at Flannery told me she had come down with a fever while I was gone!

I started to doubt my 'mommy feelings', thinking I may have wasted money on a non-needed doctors trip and medication.  I didn't feel that way for too long.  After lunch Aubrey said he was cold.  Uh, oh, his fever may be coming back.  I waited another 20 minutes as he was looking fine.  But that too changed quickly.  I took his temp after those 20 minutes, it was 102.5*.  So I gave him the antibiotics.  And if I wasn't sure of myself then (which I was by that point) I had waited another 30 minutes to give him motrin, only because I wanted to give him one med at a time.  I wanted to make sure that the antibiotic started getting into him, without his body working on the motrin as well.  Thirty minutes later, and Aubrey looked horrid!  I mean, he looked really, really sick :-(  Re-took his temp...103.5*

Isabella used to be my queen of fevers.  She would sport a 103* in a flash, BUT although she looked like she was 'getting' sick, she was still playing, eating, and looking decent.  This was NOT so with Aubrey.  He looked horrid, horrid, horrid.  But thankfully, after two doses of the antibiotic, he has been fever free!!  He still has the initial munge, which I knew could not be causing the high fever, but he is eating, playing, talking, etc.  I have my little boy back!  I am soooo thankful.

I still have other sickies over here, some with fevers, BUT their symptoms are, at this point, matching up to their illness.

And that is how Aubrey's week went!  Thankfully he's on the up and up.

 Aubrey napping on the couch today.  He woke and fell back to sleep in my arms...been napping now for 4 hours!!  

 With all the sickness, and knowing I won't be able to stay on top of our destructive active boys (so far we have one still going strong!) we only put up our tree and....

...stockings.  Granted we don't go big on decorations, but everyone can tell the difference or lack of those 'little' things.  I just tell myself...we are in a season for now, one that requires simplicity!  :-)