Son being hospitalized in Age 36

My son 6 years old is currently in the hospital. We are doing better, but let me tell you what happened, and other things I notice happen when your child is hospitalized. on Monday 8/8 he complained of neck pain. I disregarded it telling him that most likely it was the way he had slept. I went to work. My mom calls me in the ER (where I work) and tell me that DS has had a fever and been lagging all day and has not eaten. DS is an avid eater of all things unhealthy and tasty to most kids. I called my niece because she can better carry out my instructions. And she confirmed a tympanic fever and his lethargy. I was thinking tonsilitis which is what he had a few weeks prior, but she denied seeing a red throat or white spots in the back.

I called husband and told him to go pick up my boy. I was scheduled to work until 9pm that night, but i left two hours early. When I got home it was 1950. I went to his room and looked him over and that is when I noticed the lump he had in his neck. He was still feverish. I packed up my stuff and hauled our butts over to the Kaiser UC. They saw us and gave us antibiotics to start. The next morning, my son could now not move his neck to the sides nor look up and down. The lump had grown, and it was starting to get red. I waited until that evening, but between my husband’s urging and my own mom gut, I called to make an appointment for the next day.

Thank God I did.

We saw a pediatrician and he noted that yes, the lump was red and angry, and it was very painful to my son. The redness and grown, and my son had had fevers morning and night since Monday. It was now Wednesday. The peds doc ordered labs, neck ultrasound, and started my boy on Clindamycin. Now moms let me tell you, the taste of the medicine will make or break the experience. Clindamycin taste like vodka with a splash of grenadine in it. Imagine giving that to a child. Even most adults would shudder at the straight up taste of vodka.

As Wednesday night toiled on he spiked another fever, I also saw the redness spread more towards his jaw and down his neck on the left side of his body. At first the lump was just behind his ear. He was now getting to the point where he could not open his jaw and he was not eating or drinking much. Even when I said it was ok to drink all the undiluted apple juice he wanted, he still didn’t intake much. Thursday morning rolled around. The pediatrician from the visit prior had briefed the new pediatrician on that day and she looked and everything including his labs from the day prior. I won’t go into detail but his WBCs were 26.5, his CRP was 162, and is ESR was 119. I could have those backwards.

The peds doc said what I knew was going to happen but hoping wouldn’t: we were being admitted to the hospital. They arranged for a bed at their pediatric facility and from 2pm that day where we were just going about our day, we found ourselves at the hospital at 5pm. Being admitted. During our stay I saw the redness crawl around his neck and face going up towards his eye on the left side.

Let me tell you that one’s faith can be really tested in those hours. I am a woman of faith, I believe in our Lord, but during these days my faith was being tested and tapped out. I had to call my brother who is very strong in his faith to ground me. He said exactly what I needed to hear. So I held steadfast, prayed to my God to remind me that even during the poo being slung at me he was right there being poo’d on. Once I remembered that, I focused on Him and tried to stay in faith.

On Saturday morning his redness was down, he could move his neck. I couldn’t tell you how exited I was. Finally some progress! He later had to have some invasive procedures just to recheck his levels. They were coming down, but then his potassium was 2.5. So we had to go to fix that.

Let me tell you that something like this not only puts strain on you emotionally and mentally, but can also make you myopic. You get so fixated on your kid that you kinda forget about the spouse. Depending on the relationship that you have, something like this can test that too. I’m noticing that and this is something that I don’t think couples or parents talk about. When you think of a child in the hospital, you think of the obvious: it sucks to have your child in the hospital. But in your mind it never crosses your mind about the strain on the relationship.

My advice to you both is to always communicate with your partner about what is going on with your child. You have to be strong with each other and always remind yourselves that both of you are not going through this alone; if one person is the parent always staying with the child at the hospital, that doesn’t mean that the other parent isn’t also worrying about you guys back at the hospital. I lost sight of that, of him. I was so fixated on my boy that I kinda kep the husband at bay.

He’s getting better, but damn this sucks. Just know that if this ever happens to any of you as parents. It sucks. The feeling is indescribable. In all of your life through every experience that you had, having a child in the hospital and watching something infect him that you have no control over and have to wait patiently, is the most challenging thing ever.