It has been a crazy couple of days but I'll try and recap as best I can.
Thursday morning I called the physician's office as Tennyson hadn't been acting like himself and had been running a fever off and on the past few days (also just an FYI you shouldn't give motrin to babies under 6 months of age, it eats their stomachs, someone should tell a girl this or post it on the box...) anyways so we saw Dr. Hamby a partner of Dr. Holmes in his Neosho office. Dr. Hamby looked over Tennyson, who weighed 11lbs. 12 ounces and was 24 inches long and ordered some lab work to be done. We came back into Joplin and headed to Freeman West to have his lab work done.
It was horrible they had to stick his heel and take three tubes of blood, he wasn't overly cooperative because they pull from his thigh down his leg to try and get good blood drops however after one pull he pulls his legs back and fights them. So 45 minutes and both heels being stuck later (the first one clotted), we had enough blood. He had screamed the entire time, I had cried rather hysterically when we had to do the second stick and were so close to being done, so it was pretty bad. The lab is at the far end of the ER and they can only do one at a time so by the time we left there was a line outside and tons of people standing there watching all of this unfold, it was awful. As we were leaving so many people said they were sorry to me.
Since we were at Freeman and no one had seen him in six pounds we stopped by and visited some of the NICU personnel and saw Candy, Karen, Dr. Porte, Tammy, Heather and Jeannie who loved on him a bit which was wonderful. It was so good to see everyone, it's amazing how much we miss them.
From there we headed home to visit with Aunt Jenny and wait for the lab results, he said it should only take an hour. About an hour and a half later, I called the Children's Clinic in Neosho and they took my number to say the nurse would call me right back. She called back a bit later and said Dr. Holmes wanted us to head to his office in Joplin where he was going to give us his papers to have him admitted as it will be cheaper and quicker than heading to the ER. This is not something I was expecting so I called Travis and Jenny and I took Tennyson and headed to Dr. Holmes' office.
We were add on patients so we waited in our room until Dr. Holmes was finished seeing patients and he saw us. He said his test results came back and his CRP (which tests for infection) was an 8 and it should be less than 1 and his white blood cell count was 19,000 and it should be around 12,000. So he obviously had an infection of some kind. So we got our paperwork and headed over to Freeman.
We were admitted and it was right before shift change so the day nurse got us comfortable and the night nurses were left to do the admitting (20 questions). So we waited until after they got us admitted and they were going to get an IV put in so they could get is antibiotic started, take a blood draw for a culture and give him some sugar water with potassium. So they said one family member could go but I was tramatized enough from earlier that day so Travis and I walked over to visit the NICU staff (he got his coffee from Vanessa like we'd never left) while Aunt Jenny held him during the IV.
They tried putting the IV in his little hands twice however were unable to it was in the right side of his scalp and apparently bled quite a bit because his hair was matted with blood and such. But at least he was able to get his antibiotics.
Travis, Jenny, Tennyson and I hung out until late Thursday night and Jenny and Trav headed back to our house so Tennyson and I were left to try and get through the night with the IV. We did alright as he was up every other hour and rather fussy because he wasn't feeling well but we managed. Dr. Holmes came in around 7am on Friday morning and stated the blood culture thus far was negative and if it remains that way and his fever stays under control, he would discharge us Saturday morning as there were three other patients on peds and they all had RSV which is something we definatley do not want. They had taken another heel stick that morning and the CRP came back at 3.9 which was much lower but not as low as he'd like.
So we went through the day getting our antibiotic dosages, our prevacid, our polyvisol and just hanging out. It was good to be able to be with him but during the afternoon he was up and fussing (crying) for around four hours so Jenny and I kept taking turns passing him back and forth. She headed back to Union Star around 4:45 by way of Springfield and Bolivar (sorry) and Travis got there around 5:15 so he and I passed him around in the evening because again he wasn't feeling the best.
Around 8:30 his IV pump alarmed that it was occluded however there were no kinks in the hosing so they said they were going to flush the IV. It wouldn't flush so they were going to have to do some work on the IV so again Travis and I headed over to the NICU to visit. We visited with Dana and Heather for a bit and then headed back. The IV was blown and they thought it had clotted so they tried and tried to pull the clot out however never found it so our room was a bit of a mess as he'd bled all over the bedding and his outfit. The pediatrician on call decided since we were looking at going home in the morning that there was no need to restart the IV and they would just give his antibiotic dosage via injections in his thighs.
So Ted and Connie got here around 9:30 and we were all able to visit a bit before they came in to give his injection. It ended up being such a large dosage they had to give injections in both thighs which we were really excited about so both nurses took a thigh each and gave them simultaneously. Tennyson did so great, he cried for a bit but then was done. So after that we visited and Ted, Connie and Travis headed back to our house in Oronogo and Tennyson and I settled in again.
We did a bit better but it seemed the nurse would come in to weigh him or take vital signs right after I got him to sleep over and over so we had a rough night but we made it through again. Dr. Holmes came in this morning around 8am and stated the urine analysis and blood culture were both negative and since his fever hadn't returned he would fill out the discharge paperwork and we could head home. We will be visiting his Joplin office on Wednesday afternoon for a check up. When he was assessing Tennyson this morning I asked again about his hernias, he said Tennyson would let us know when they were hurting badly by either screaming or spitting up tons when you touched the hernia. When Dr. Holmes touched it during his assessment, Tennyson puked and it was terrible. So Dr. Holmes said Wednesday they will send us on to another physician in town and get his hernia surgery scheduled so we can get that taken care of.
So Tennyson and I packed up our room and headed out to our house in Oronogo, Ted welcomed us around 9:30 this morning and we got settled back in at home and boy are we glad to be here. I ran to the store this morning as Tennyson is having trouble having bowel movements and Dr. Holmes said to give him 2 oz of apple juice each day and that should help. Thus far it hasn't so please keep praying for that.
Basically from my understanding, they determined whatever he has is viral and therefore must run it's own course. He's obviously feeling better and has been sleeping this afternoon so that is great. Thank you all so very much for all your prayers and please continue praying for his health as hopefully he will be 100% back to himself soon.
Also in the pictures notice the pack n' play. Hillyards had a granny shower for Connie and this was one of the gifts, we have already been enjoying it.
Know that we love you all and we're so very thankful for all you do and have done for us. We couldn't make it without you.
Amazed by the Almighty-
Travis, Lindsay & Tennyson Myers
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