Thursday, June 3, 2010

Brody's Scary Sickness

Gabe has not been traveling much for work lately, just a few times a year. Well one of those few times, we had a challenging yet sort of scary couple days with Brody. He developed an extremely high fever that didn't really seem to break with Tylenol and/or Motrin. Once the fever reached 103-104, wasn't eating (which is not normal Brody behavior ecen when sick), he had thrown up, and all he wanted to do was be held (which again is not normal Brody behavior even while sick), I called the nurses line at our doctors office and they told us to go ahead and come on in. Before we got there, his fever had reached 105. While there he threw up again...this time all over me! Yuck! But it didn't bother me at the time, all I wanted was to make my baby feel better. The doctor drew blood, conducted strep and flu tests and gave him an antibiotic shot (for an ear infection). Our doctor said he illness was not related to the ear infection. All of the tests came back clear so the diagnosis was a virus, but he wanted us to go get a chest x-Ray first thing the next morning to rule out pneumonia.
The next day, I took Brody to his appointment for the x-Ray. Being pregnant, I couldn't be in the room while they took the x-rays. I had to stand outside and listen to my sweet baby cry due to the loudness of the x-Ray machine. Heartbreaking!! I stayed home from work that day since Gabe was out of town. Luckily my mom was available to help me out. Not sure I would have survived without her help. It is exhausting taking care of a baby that is sick, but it was taken up a few notches with how sick he really was. Fever still 103-105 all day that day and we ended up putting him in a lukewarm bath to try and break that fever!
Gabe came home the following day when Brody's fever was finally manageable. Late that evening we started to notice some redness on his face. The next day it had spread to his whole body. So we called the doctor again. While waiting for their phone call back, Gabe had talked to someone at work who had experienced the same type of thing with his daughter. He "diagnosed" Brody with roseola. We googled it and seemed to be accurate symptoms. Once the nurse returned our call
after speaking to our doctor, he was officially diagnosed with roseola.

Main Symptoms of roseola:
High fever for 2-3 days
Once fever breaks, the child breaks out in a rash that can last for a few days
There is nothing you can do for this virus, it has to run it's course. Roseola cannot be diagnosed until the rash appears. It is highly contagious while the child has fever. And it is found mostly in children 2 and under.

5 comments:

Kelly said...

poor baby, sounds miserable!

Justin and Allison said...

Poor guy. I was worried Caroline had something similar recently!

HILER said...

Jackson had the same thing a while back & it was so scary! Having worked in a pediatrician's office, I knew immediately what it was once I saw that rash! Totally un-nerves me to have a baby with a fever 102+! Poor pumpkin! And poor you!

The Butler Family said...

Sorry to hear, hope Brody is feeling better. It was great catching up with you all last weekend, we need to do it more often.

Emily and Andrew said...

Hey Lindsay! Just found your blog! Congrats on Baby #2!