Personal Note: Matthew’s Pneumonia

Wednesday (August 3^rd) evening I noticed Matthew felt hot to the touch.  I took his temperature and while I now don’t remember what it was, it was elevated..  We held him back from camp on Thursday, and he still had fever, and so Friday my wife took him to the pediatrician.  He had fever there too but no other symptoms, no strep throat, and so they assumed it was just a viral infection.  They don’t give you anything for that any more.  They don’t want people getting immune to antibiotics, so they have reduce the usage.  They sent Matthew home without any prescription, just told to alternate between children’s Tylenol and children’s Motrin to keep the fever down.

His fever was somewhat under control, but Saturday night it skyrocketed to 103.7 degrees and my wife wanted to take him to the Emergency Room.  I dissuaded her, arguing they’re not going to do anything there either.  I said that if it reached 104 degrees than we would go.

It came down and for most of Sunday it was reasonable, though above normal.  Then Sunday afternoon it spiked up to 104.3, and at that point we decided to go to the E-R.  At the hospital, Matthew again didn’t seem to have any other symptoms, and the doctor was about to release us when on intuition he decided to send Matthew for a chest x-ray.  Well, x-ray showed a good size pneumonia in his lower left lung, and so we got to the bottom of it.  He prescribed Matthew an antibiotic.

Matthew’s temperature was still going up and down, again spiking over 104 degrees, but coming down.  Today (Tuesday) he had a follow-up with the pediatrician, and she now only heard the pneumonia in the left lung, but said he developed it in his right lung as well.  So she then doubled up on the antibiotic and Matthew has to breathe with a nebulizer three times a day.  Today the fever has been close to normal all day.  I think we’re over the hump, but I’m still guarded.

Here’s a picture of Matthew with his kangaroo nebulizer.  LOL, they’ll do anything to make kids enjoy their medical treatments.

Your prayers for Matthew are certainly welcomed. 

Matthew Monday: Strep Throat

Matthew has been remarkably healthy since he’s come home to us.  In the two and a half years he’s only had a couple of mild instances of fever, and nothing else.  These past few days he got strep throat. 

We sensed there was something going on in the middle of the night on Wednesday, going into Thursday morning.  He was in bed and I downstairs and I heard what sounded like crying sounds.  Of course that had to be Matthew so I went upstairs to his room and found him on the floor beside his bed crying.  At first I thought he had fallen out of bed, but he said he didn’t.  He asked if mommy was going to leave him, so I suspected he had a bad dream.  He kind of nodded he had a bad dream and went back to sleep.

My wife also had walked in to his room in the early morning to find him crying.  At school Thursday he wasn’t right, she said.  He didn’t feel he had fever, but something was going on.  He kept whining and wanting his mother.  That night he finally got a mild fever.  My wife handled it with children’s Tylenol.  It helped but boy was he whiny and crying.  He normally attaches himself to me when I’m home, but not this time.  It was mommy for everything.    My wife called the doctor’s office and they had an opening right then.  She got him over and the doctor diagnosed Strep Throat, and he said it was going to get worse before getting better.  He prescribed antibiotics.

He was right.  Fever went over 104F (40C) and Matthew was either crying non-stop or laying on the couch like a half dead animal.  We tried to get him to drink fluids and all he wanted was chocolate milk.  I don’t think that was a good idea.  I tried to sooth him at one point and the chocolate milk expectorated out of his mouth as if it were a garden hose.  It was a whoosh, like that child in the vomit movie scene in The Exorcist, only it was chocolate brown instead of green.  And guess where it propelled to?  You got it, all over my shirt…lol.  Yuck.  But what are daddies for?

 

Well, at least it didn’t hit me in the face.

 

The antibiotic worked marvelously.  His fever came down that night and then gone in the morning.  He spent the weekend inside and he still whined for his mommy the whole time.  But the fever never came back. It passed remarkably quick.  So even with this illness, he seems remarkably healthy, healthier than I was as a child.