October 7 - Blood Work & Ear Infection

What a night!!! I finished packing for our trip and climbed into bed at 1am. Levi had already been up twice at that point, but I figured he was just hearing me move around a lot and would settle down, but sadly that was not to be the case. At 1:30 he was up! Screaming!!! Crying! Yelling! It was awful. By 2:15 we had bounced between our bed, the couch downstairs, his bed, had a drink, been under every different blanket. At that point I was pretty sure he had an ear infection. He was telling me that his ear hurt and his ear was quite warm. We had given Tylenol at 12:45 when he was yelling, as at that point I had thought it was a night terror, which he commonly has when he is in pain, so we medicate during them. So at 2:15 there wasn't anything more I could give him for the pain, and the Tylenol should be fully working in his system. After another round of jump from bed to bed and drink and potty and just yelling and screaming I was exhausted. At 3:00 I finally got him to sleep in our bed. Awesome!! He's sleeping!! For 15 minutes! After that he was up screaming and carrying on again. This wasn't a good start to our weekend. Either Jay or I needed to be able to Drive to Pennsylvania later that day, so we needed at least a few hours of sleep. At 3:30 we gave him Benadryl and by 4:00 he was sleeping. I knew that I would be getting him into the pediatrician the next day, so I e-mailed out of work at 3:30 in the morning. I figured the Benadryl would work for a few hours, and that I would wake up a little before 8 and call the pediatrician when they opened at 8, and then wake Levi up in time for his appointment. But, that was not to be my luck either! Levi was up and screaming at 7! I got him into the bathtub thinking that would keep him entertained and distracted from the pain for a few minutes, but even that didn't do much. By 7:20 he was shaking uncontrollably in the bath from screaming so much. I got him out and dressed, gave him some more Tylenol and we headed towards the doctors, because I knew that the car would be a place where he can settle and not thrash at least because he is in his seat!

As soon as the office opened at 8 I called. The earliest time they could see him was 9:30. So with some time to kill, and the fact that at this point I was only about 10 minutes from the doctors we decided to go do blood work, just to make sure the infection hadn't tanked his system too much.

We got to the lab and walked in. Uh Oh, not a good start, P was out and there was a wait! At this point, the Tylenol had kicked in, and Levi was acting a little more like himself. Still pretty fussy, but mostly himself.

When it was our turn to go in the nurse, who we had never seen before, seemed a little confused by his paperwork, and the fact that his results get faxed to multiple places. I told her, that that was correct, so hopefully everything would be done right in the system.
The draw itself went fantastic and we were off and running to the treasure box before I knew it. Levi was a little indecisive, but ended up with another paddle and ball to play with in the car. He wanted to stop and play with the fountain, so we stopped and played.

Then it was time to head over to see his pediatrician. His actual doctor, Dr. S, didn't have any openings in the practice so we saw Dr. A instead. We got their, and Levi was acting like nothing was wrong (thank you Tylenol for kicking in, but I swear kids are just like cars, you take them to the doctors and they are all smiles and giggles and make you seem like you are lying).

Playing in the waiting room. Cranberry had to come in with us as well! 

Dr. A saw Levi and confirmed that he did indeed have an ear infection in his right ear. It wasn't a horrible one, and he thought that one dose of antibiotics for 5 days should easily take care of it. But to call him back on Monday if things weren't better. He also said to keep him medicated on Tylenol every 4 hours around the clock for the next 24 to 48 hours, that it didn't make sense to let his body go up and down on Tylenol, and that after that we could ween him off it and see how he was doing with the pain on his own. Since we were there anyways, we got his flu shot too! :)

Levi and I headed to Wal-mart to get his prescription and a few last minute snacks for the drive to Sesame Place and we headed home to wait for Daddy to get home so we could leave. We got home and were hanging out upstairs because our Maid was still working downstairs, when Levi found my secret supply of chocolate in the bedroom and ate several pieces of it.

At this point I was surprised Levi's counts hadn't come in yet, as usually the fax only takes about 40 minutes. Jay called the lab and they apologized and faxed it over. Levi's count was 98. Ugh! A 35 point drop in less then 24 hours is not good!! Well now what are we going to do! We are supposed to be leaving for Sesame Place in less then an hour, a trip that Levi has been counting down too for over a month! Jay and I talked and decided that unless Dr. V was completely against it that we would like to continue with the trip as planned and keep a careful eye on him. He was on antibiotics now, so that should help his body not need the platelets as much and should drastically slow down the use of them.

Jay got home and we were on the road. We were about 2 minutes from home when Dr. V called. Jay and Dr. V had a long call where we basically all came to the same conclusion that waiting until his scheduled infusion on Tuesday would be ok, however if we noticed anything we were to call and could either get into the CHoP or drive straight through to the CHaD. About 5 minutes into their phone call Levi made an odd noise, and I looked back and the poor guy had puked all over himself and his car seat! I turned around and we headed home to get him cleaned up! This was not a good thing. Dr. V told us to watch for that with the antibiotics as well and to call with any questions or feelings that were off, we could always just talk through them on the phone. He was also going to let the on-call doctor know what we had talked about.

So after a late start, a strange day, and a low count, we were on our way to see Elmo!! And I am so glad we did! Levi had a blast! The memories of that weekend are amazing and I wouldn't have wanted to deprive him of those happy times with his cousins and family!

We do send our thoughts and prayers to Chris, Martha, and the kids as well as the whole family with the sudden loss of an amazing lady during that weekend . RIP Judy!