Slow November

As you may have noticed, November was kind of a slow month in my blog-o-sphere. Has there been a month in the past year that I've only done one post in a month? Hmmmm...

Anyway, there really wasn't much to report, until the end of the month anyway. I was out of work a few days with sick kiddos, but other than that we have just been maintaining the status quo.

Toward the end of the month, the boys got H1N1. Well, I guess we're assuming that's what it was. Apparently, docs aren't swabbing for it anymore. They just say, "Well, these look like flu-like symptoms, must be swine flu." Maybe they have magic H1N1 detectors? Who knows.

Jack had it first. He was running a fever and had a snotty nose, so I took him to the doctor, who said it was a cold (this was his second round of fever in about a week and a half). The fever lasted for about 2.5 days and then it was gone. So when Spencer spiked a fever, I just assumed it was the same thing and we went ahead and traveled to Little Rock for the holiday.

But Spencer's fever was persistent and, as the days passed, kept getting higher and higher. But he never really acted sick. He was still playing and having a great time. We took him to an after hours clinic where they diagnosed him with the dreaded swine flu and sent us on our way with a prescription for Tamiflu.

Four days after the fever began, he woke up fever free and stayed that way. "Hooray!" we all shouted. Swine flu defeated! We went to Chuck E. Cheese and Barnes and Noble and had a great time.

The next day, however, he woke up with a fever of 105.3. I'm not typically one to panic over a fever, but that is a high number. In fact, I'd never seen a number that high on a thermometer before. I managed to get an appointment with our old pediatrician in Sherwood, Dr. Miers (who ROCKS! If you are in the Little Rock area, I can't recommend her enough). She took one look and him and ordered blood work and a lung x-ray. Lungs looked good, blood work was crazy, so she directly admitted us to the hospital.

Spencer's blood had basically gone septic. He tested positive for streptococcus pneumoniae, which can cause all kinds of nastiness from sepsis to meningitis. But Dr. M caught it soon enough that the IV antibiotics were able to knock it out pretty well.

He ended up staying in the hospital for about 5 days, including over Thanksgiving.

I'm super grateful for Dr. M, that she was able to catch it. I certainly don't have confidence that our pediatrician here in Mountain Home would have (see the fact that Jack was diagnosed with a cold above. Dr. M said that with Jack being generally healthier than Spencer and breastfed, he probably had it and just kicked it really easily). I certainly wish I could clone her and bring a copy up here.

Hopefully I'll do better blogging in December. :-)