Owen update

To make a long story short, Owen's in the hospital. I have my laptop and we're getting ready to turn in for the night, but I'll give you the story as I can in the time that I have.

As I said yesterday (I think I posted this, right? My days are completely jumbled after the last 24 hours), Owen's been complaining about neck pain since Saturday. Yesterday, at the pediatrician he was diagnosed w/ strep throat and started on antibiotics. Our night went down hill around 830 pm when hell froze over at the Bauer house. Owen said (I repeat, OWEN said this), "I just want to go to bed. PLEASE...let me go to bed." Owen has never, never uttered those words before. Not under any circumstance. I should have known how bad he was then. But, I didn't. He went to bed. A half hour to forty five minutes later, he woke up screaming that his neck hurt SO bad. He complained of a headache, too. He had Motrin and Tylenol in him and for the next 5 hours he slept for 5-15 minutes before he would wake up screaming about his neck and head. At 130 AM, I finally called our pediatrician and spoke to the on-call/triage nurse who said to take him to the ER. Owen and I drove to the ER around 2 AM at which point he seemed to perk up a bit. We got there and I said, "You seem like you are feeling a bit better. Maybe we should go home." He said, "OK" and we turned around and went home. Crazy, I know. HELLO??? What was I thinking??? Anyway, he slept off and on from about 3-7 AM and we were at the pediatrician at 10 this AM.

She thought he had a peritonsillar abscess and said his left tonsil looked much worse then yesterday. In the meantime, he is now throwing up in her office, can't swallow, and hasn't had anything by mouth since 1 AM (because he can't swallow). She called our ENT who was in surgery and she didn't think Owen could wait for him, so she was going to call an ambulance and send him in. But then the ENT said that he could see Owen at 1230, so we went to his office where the ENT decided he needed to be admitted to the hospital. He called the hospital to direct admit him, so we wouldn't have to go through the ER and was told that the hospital and the pediatric unit was on diversion. (Not accepting new patients). So, we sat in his office for an hour and a half (where he continued to puke) and finally, the ENT said he couldn't wait any longer. He needed to go to the ER for treatment until the hopsital could admit him. He suspected that Owen had a deep tissue abscess, not a peritonsillar abscess. He said best case scenario: no abscess, IV antibiotics, IV steroids, IV Morphine, rapid improvement and discharge in 2-3 days. Worst case scenario: deep tissue abscess, surgery in 48 hours, and w/ improvement discharge in one week.

So, we went to the ER where Owen had a CT scan, lab work, blood cultures, IV Morphine, IV antibiotics, and IV steroids.

We are know in our comfy hospital bed on 5M at Crouse. The IV Morphine has made Owen feel a LOT better. His CT scan showed lots of swelling, but no abscess (good news). Bad news: his labs were way off and his airway is in danger because he has such an extreme amount of swelling. So, the plan is for him to get 24 hours of IV steroids (to reduce the swelling) and IV antibiotics for 48 hours. If he's still not feeling better and spiking a temp (did I mention that he has a fever, too?) and his labs continue to be off, they will repeat the CT scan on Saturday, because it's possible that after the swelling is reduced they will be able to see an abscess OR an abscess is just beginning to form. For now they are saying he has a cellulitis.


I'll blog more as I can.

OH....Owen wants me to tell you that the RN told us today that the moral of the story is: 95% of people who drive to the ER and then turn around will be back within 24 hours. Good to know.