May 17, 2013

SD was scheduled to have his monthly clinic check-up this morning, but is across the street in a hospital room instead.

He's had a cough for two weeks now. It was worst during the first week and has been fluctuating in frequency since then. On Wednesday he began complaining about a tummy ache and acted more clingy than usual, and this continued into Thursday. He woke up Thursday with a low-grade fever, and around 10 am crawled into our bed saying that he was going to take a nap. I thought he was playing around, but he actually did fall asleep; I think this was the first time he's ever done that. His temperature stayed steady until the late afternoon; upon calling DeVos about his 101.5 fever we were told to go to the hospital and by the time the phone call ended, his temperature had risen to 102.4. It was 103 when he was checked in at the ER.

After hours of waiting and blood draws and x-rays, the word was that he has pneumonia. He was given a hospital room, where I came later to spend the night. His fever lasted through the night. When the doctor spoke to us this morning, he said that he wants to see SD fever-free for a day or two and his white blood cell count going up before he is discharged. So it looks like we'll be here at the hospital a bit longer than originally hoped.

The doctor also said that he is not convinced that SD has pneumonia. He ordered more blood work for cultures; so far the cultures taken yesterday have not shown presence of bacteria, but it usually takes a couple days to be conclusive.

The nurse came in a little while ago to take SD's temperature and to give him Tylenol. His fever is the highest yet at 103.6; it shoots back up every time the Tylenol wears off. About an hour ago SD announced that he was going to take a nap and fell asleep almost right away. He's been sleeping since, waking up just enough to take some Tylenol a little bit ago.