Ok so now that we know that our son is all healthy here is what happened:
First, the day we got released from the hospital we were told that dex's bili-ruben was slightly elevated and that we would need to come back and have it checked in the morning. Well it was still elevated so they said that he had to be in a bili bed for as much of the day as possible till it went down (4 days later) Well he hated it and it was so so sad to have to put him in there and see him all blind folded. Plus he had to be watched the whole time he was in there to make sure his blindfold didn't move, that meant 24 hour monitoring. We took 3 hour shifts between me, matt and my mom. (this was nothing compared to what we would have to deal with in a few days though.)
On the day of Dexter's 2 week appointment, Dec 1, 2009 he woke up with a fever. Matt is the one that noticed it when he picked him up. (such a great dad) He took his temperature and it was 102.2. We called the doctor, who told us to come in immediately. Matt and I both had no idea that this was such a big deal. So when we got to the doc, he checked a few things and then explained to us that babies under 2 months should never have a fever, it is the cardinal rule, there bodies just dont know how to respond. He then scared us to death by telling us that he needed to do a lumbar puncture and a urine culture right then and that after that we would need to go straight to the hospital and check him in. We were both pretty scared for our son and in an effort to calm us down the doctor reassured us that the risks of a lumbar puncture are really really low, he had only lost one child by doing so, yeah like that is going to calm us down! So while he was doing the tests matt and i call both sets of grand parents to have them meet us at the hospital.
At the hospital, Matt and both grandpas administered a priesthood blessing right away, which provided much needed comfort. Now at the hospital, since we had no idea what he had, everyone who entered the room had to be completely covered, no one could be around him with out wearing a mask, apron, hat and gloves. After that, they took more tests and we got the test results back from the lumbar puncture that showed his white blood cells (which means there is an infection somewhere in his body) were escalated, his liver was irritated and he was dehydrated. At that point we didn't really know what that all meant till we got more results and his cultures still had to grow. The next step was getting the IV in, which i left the room! Matt is such a great dad and stayed in there ad held him hand. Dex was a champ because it took them 45 minutes to find a vein! They started him on fluids and 5 different antibiotics to cover all possibilities and said they would take him off of those according to results. Then we were informed that the Pediatric Specialist of Infectious Diseases would be taking over our case. At this point we were totally freaked out, scared for dex and doing all we could to keep our composure. Now we were just waiting for doctors and more results.
The specialist Dr. O (his name is hard to pronounce) came in later that afternoon to talk to us. He explained all of the possibilities of what was going on, in worst case scenarios: Meningitis, Herpes( there were tons of diseases in this family) Mono, and the list went on. He also said that RSV would be the best case scenario. He said if dex did not improve by the morning that he would need to be moved to Primaries in SLC.
That first night was SO long. We were so worried for our poor dex. He was so hard to look at hooked up to all those wires. That night we got all the big diseases test results back and they were all negative, but the nurse did even come in and tell us! We didnt find out till the morning. That morning Dr. O came in and said he was perplexed, that he was sure that it was going to be something in the Herpes family but that he was very happy to see that it was not. But we were still waiting for cultures to grow, one for a UTI and one Meningitis. So we were just waiting...
By this time Matt and i were so unbelievably tired, but we didnt want to leave Dexter or the hospital! So my parents did a little investigating and found out that there was a parents sleep room at the hospital! They were amazing and came up to spend the night with dex so we could try to get some sleep. When they came for there shift, i was lying in the crib with dexter and matt was comatose on the pull out couch. When i say comatose he was so out of it, i could not even wake him up and when i finally did all he knew was we were going to sleep somewhere and while i was getting the code for the room, i turned around and matt was gone. I found him asleep in some chair down the hallway. So my parents were in with dex and we got a full 8 hours of sleep, it actually felt like 30 min, but it was still amazing!
The next morning Dr. O came in some news. Dexter had a UTI caused by E-coli which leads to Bacterial Meningitis but his meningitis culture did not grow (which happens sometimes) so they were going to treat him for both with a PICC line. This would be a small IV that would go from his forearm to the right ventricle of his heart and we would then administer antibiotics, ourselves (freak me out) through it every 8 hours for 21 days.
Now we just had to deal with the anticipation of inserting the PICC line. Matt had to go to school that morning so it was just me, good thing my parents were there because i was a wreck. The gave dex some medicine to calm him down and make him forget but we could still hear him screaming in the hallway, sad! The team that was inserting the line was down from Primaries and were really great. The whole process was only going to take an hour, well when the hour mark hit we heard and emergency page over the loud speaker to, please call pediatrics. I just looked at my dad and said "Um is that for my baby?" and at that same time matt was getting back from school and heard that as he walked into the hospital doors and thought "Um is that for my baby?" I was totally freaked but my parents stayed calm and my dad went to go check, as it turned out they needed to get the ultra sound machine (because they couldnt find a vein) from another floor that was not answering their phone. Someone could have warned us that was going to come on the loud speaker! By that time matt was there and they came out to tell us they were done. The man who inserted it came out to explain to us that "dex gave me a run for my money." He first tried a vein in his left arm and could not get it past his shoulder and then tried his right arm, the first vein, it kept curling at his shoulder and then the second vein was a success! Dex was totally a wreck when we got in there. Not only could he not eat for 6 hours before the procedure but the meds they gave him made him temporarily made him forget how to suck, and he was hurting. But the hard part was over! So now, Dex and his PICC line had to be observed for 24 hours and then we were good to go.
We finally got to leave! After 4 long days, we were sent home to do the whole PICC line thing on our own. I will not even get into the whole issue with the home care nurses because that is a long horrible story.
We are so glad that both sets of grand parent could be there with us to lend support. Thank you so much to family and friends for all the love and prayers sent our way!
For the next 3 weeks we had to administer meds through his line every 8 hours, plus his 2 1/2 - 3 our feedings made life very tiring for us. Dec. 21, 2009 he got his line out, it was crazy all they did was cute the stitches and pulled it out. they then put him on oral antibiotics till we had one last test done to check his kidney/bladder function. We just had that test done on Jan. 7, 2010. They had to catheterize him, fill his bladder with dye and then watch how it flushed out of his body. The results came back negative which means that everything was working right. We are so relived! ha ha the doc came out and said "Everything looks normal, accept for his abnormally long penis." we were dying laughing. I guess it normally takes 10 centimeters to cath and get to the bladder on baby boys and dex took 15, Matt was so proud :)
So now we finally have our healthy little boy, who we love to death!
