It all started Monday morning when Caleb woke up with some red spots on his forehead. At first I thought he had scratched himself (he does that a lot), so I didn't think too much about it. Tuesday, there were a few more red spots, now getting closer to his eyes. Also, on his hands where he has had eczema, he had some rashes that were looking almost purple and puffy. Not good at all. He was mildly fussy, but not too bad. That night before bed, though, I noticed he felt warm and took his temperature to discover a fever of 101. The following morning he still had a fever of 101 and he was pretty cranky so I called the pediatrician and got him an appointment for that afternoon.
At the doctor, we learned that Caleb has strep. This sounds confusing but the doctor said that the bacteria from the strep was going to different parts of his body. This is the reason for the rash on his hands and face. He said it's pretty easy to fix. Caleb needed an antibiotic for the strep and some cream for his skin and he should be good to go. Sounds easy enough.
Wednesday night, though was not fun. Caleb could not sleep longer than an hour stretch and at times, he was inconsolable. He decided at 4 AM that he wanted to be awake and he didn't fall asleep again until 6. So yesterday started out not so great. It continued to be not so great when he wouldn't sleep...at all. In the afternoon, he took a short nap that lasted all of 30 minutes, but that was it. All day! The poor guy had to be exhausted! In the meantime, I was not having good feelings about his rash. If anything, it looked a little worse than the day before, and it was all I could do to keep him from scratching at it. So we had to bandage his hands up which broke my heart. We got in touch directly to our pediatrician, Dr. Mike last night and he explained to us that they used to hospitalize kids as sick as Caleb. It was important for us to keep him hydrated, which for me meant nursing him more often. Over the past couple days, that has been the key to calming Caleb down. The ONLY thing to calm him down! Also, Dr. Mike told us to up the dose of Tylenol a little bit. If that didn't help Caleb sleep, then he would prescribe a medicine that would help with pain and make Caleb sleep for 5-6 hours.
Last night, the only way Caleb slept was in my arms until 2 AM. And even then, he wasn't completely comfortable or happy the whole time. Chris took over at 2 and somehow got Caleb to fall asleep again.
This morning, Caleb was relatively happy for awhile and even played on the floor with Laura Anne. The only change I noticed was that his left eye was a little swollen. It could be from him rubbing it alot, but I'm not sure so when I called the doctor this morning to update them on Caleb's situation, I mentioned that too. So we'll see what they say when they call back.
Thankfully, Caleb is sleeping right now and has been for about an hour and a half, I think. So that's really good. He needs rest! Oh, I forgot to mention that yesterday afternoon I noticed that he's getting another tooth! This one's on top. I couldn't believe it! If the strep wasn't enough to keep him miserable, let's add a tooth too! Poor kid! My heart breaks for all his little ailments.
This picture was taken this morning. I took others of just Caleb, but he looked so pitiful in them. I decided not to post those because it made me want to cry just looking at them.
2 comments:
Hey girl! I'm not sure if you remember but James had the same thing last year!! It was AWFUL! He's had several bouts with strep throughout his life but this one was the worst!!! I'm not sure about Caleb's but James' strep also affected his joints and made him unable to walk (of course Caleb isn't walking yet but he could still have pain in his joints). James had to be put on Lortab...it was the ONLY thing that would work to help alleviate the pain! I hope Caleb gets better soon and I feel your pain!!!
James bout with strep is under Jan of 2008...in case you wanted to compare!
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