The Colon and The Flu

Life around here has been pretty interesting as of late. Lukas has dealt with digestive system issues for a little while now and he was finally sent to a specialist in Salt Lake City. Since then, he's been doing fine, except for a little complaining now and then of having a hurt tummy. Nothing like we had been dealing with before. The doctor still wanted to do a colonoscopy and an endoscopy to cover the bases and because there is Crohn's disease in my family. Last week Lukas endured those procedures, which was scary for him and for me.

The doc found some interesting things.

His colon has extra loops that cross over his entire abdomen. He has swollen lymph nodes all through his colon. He also has a spot of inflammation that has been labeled as mild focal active colitis. We are still trying to determine what to do about that inflammation and it seems like we are still at a trial and error stage.

He hasn't complained very much lately about his tummy, so I'm not sure how vigorous to be with this.

That has been one of the things on my mind. This is the other:

Last night, I read a some stories that families have posted online about children passing away due to whooping cough, influenza, and other diseases. They wrote about the onset of the sickness all the way to the death of their child. Some of the children just passed away while watching a movie and the parent thought their child just had a cold. Some had to go through a torturous ordeal of blood transfusions and other things until there was nothing else the doctors could do. Then they had to watch their child die when taken off life support. It was an eye opener to me and I went to bed with these stories in my head.

Today, at about 2 in the morning, Jesse woke up with a fever and was breathing erratically. I didn't have any Tylenol on hand, and there are no 24 hour places in town so I couldn't go run to the store. I brought him in bed with me to keep watch over his breathing, thinking of these stories of children who just stopped breathing and died. This morning his fever spiked to 102.5 and I waited impatiently for the opportunity to take him to the doctor. He was moaning, flushed, drooling, and weak. I thought maybe strep throat because it seemed painful for him to swallow. Taylor came home from class and I quickly took Jesse to the doctor.

After swabbing him and poking him, they determined he had the flu. But not just one strain of it. He has both Type A and Type B. She said that is very rare and is surprised to see it in him.

What? Not 24 hours after I read horror stories about children getting the flu, and now my child has not just one strain of it, but BOTH? He's a year and a half. And I'm a little terrified.

I was told it is highly contagious, so I needed to be careful. He was prescribed Tamiflu and a regimen of both Tylenol and ibuprofen to keep the fever down, and I was told to watch for dehydration or difficulty breathing. Then we were sent out the door by a concerned doctor who told me many times that she's on call until Monday and if things get worse, or I'm worried about something, to call her any time, day or night.

Jesse stayed with either me or Taylor all day until about three in the afternoon when I was finally able to lay him down by himself. He slept for 2 1/2 hours and I woke him up to give him more Tylenol. I also checked his temperature and it had gone up to 103.5. I checked his diaper and was shocked to see all these mosquito bite looking bumps all over his bum. I then thoroughly checked the rest of him and he had a couple of them on his shoulder and jawline. So, I took him back to the doctor worried he was having an allergic reaction to the medication, or maybe something worse.

She took a look at him and said it could be from the fever being so high, but I could give him some Benedryl just to be safe. Then she told me if he doesn't have a wet diaper by the time the office opens in the morning, I will need to bring him in to get an IV of some liquids. Again, she told me about her being on call, and to call her if anything changes for the worse. She then added that if she doesn't hear from me in the night, she will call me when she gets into the office in the morning to check in and see how things are going.

Tonight, Jesse will not sleep alone. He will be hovered over until he is getting better. I cannot, after learning about what other mothers have gone through and hearing how concerned the doctor is, take this lightly. He is my baby, and it tears me apart to see him so sick. I am praying he doesn't get any worse.

Life has certainly been a roller coaster.