Saturday, March 19, 2011

8 Days of Fever

I was planning to do something creative for my 100th post on our little family blog, but our life has taken a turn in the last few days.  My work, cookies and creativity have been put on hold.  

Jackson is on his 8th day of high fever and severe congestion.  When I say "high fever", I'm talking 104.6 folks...every 4 hours.  He started day care last week so we attributed the initial fever and runny nose to the "day care crud".  On Wednesday, when it wasn't getting better, his doctor wanted to see him.  She did a chest x-ray, (which was clear) diagnosed him with an ear infection and he began antibiotics that day.  Two days later (Friday), he was still running fever and blood was now in his mucus so the doc wanted to see him again.  Another chest x-ray was done in which the doctor saw "a little something" and he received a breathing treatment to help the congestion.  Our doctor is wonderful but there was only so much she could do so she sent us to the ER at Texas Children's Hospital for a complete workup on Jackson. 

We arrived here at 2:00pm yesterday (Friday) and his fever was 104 again.  They got him a room in the ER pretty quickly.  He had blood taken, a catheter put in for a urine sample, another chest x-ray, a deep suction of his little nose and got him ready for an IV.  Around 7:00pm they let us know the results and that they were admitting him.  His chest was clear however the blood work was concerning.  He is a very high white blood cell count which means his body is working very hard to fight off something and his infections-something-or-other was high too (sorry, I'm tired and can't remember all the technical terms).  There best guess at that point was that he has Kawasaki Disease.  I had to google it too!  
Kawasaki disease (KD), also known as Kawasaki syndromelymph node syndrome and Mucocutaneous lymph node syndrome,[1]is an autoimmune disease that manifests as a systemic necrotizing medium-sized vessel vasculitis and is largely seen in children under 5 years of age. It affects many organ systems, mainly those including the blood vesselsskinmucous membranes and lymph nodes; however, its most serious effect is on the heart where it can cause severe coronary artery aneurysms in untreated children. Without treatment, mortality may approach 1%, usually within 6 weeks of onset. With treatment, the mortality rate is less than 0.01% in the U.S.[2]There is often a pre-existing viral infection that may play a role in its pathogenesis.[3] The conjunctival and oral mucosa, along with the epidermis (skin), become erythematous (red and inflamed). Edema is often seen in the hands and feet and one or both of the cervical lymph nodes are often enlarged. Also, a remittant fever, often 40℃ (104°F) or higher, is characteristic of the acute phase of the disease.[4] In untreated children, the febrile period lasts on average approximately ten days, but may range from 5 to 25 days.[4] The disorder was first described in 1967 by Dr. Tomisaku Kawasaki in Japan.
Jack only exhibits a few of the criteria for this disease however.  Like I said, this is there best guess to explain the high fever and red lips. The doctors explained that if he is still running fever in the morning, then they will do an echo on his heart to see if it in enlarged.  That will determine if they treat him for Kawasaki or not.

That brings us to today.  It is 6:30am.  I think I fell asleep at 1:00am and Jack just woke crying at 5:30am with high fever and bad congestion.  His poor little eyes were glued shut with gross green stuff.  They just did another deep suction on his nose so that he could drink some of his bottle and he is resting.   The Infectious Disease Team (sounds scary) will be here in a little bit to examine him and let us know if they want to follow through with the echo.



Waylon and I are holding up well.  We just want to see our baby able to breath better and fever free. Thank you to all of our family, friends and co-workers for your support thus far. Thank you to Aunt Shawn for getting Austin from school and caring for him while we are here.

Jackson, my 100th post is dedicated to you baby.  We love you more than you will ever know and can't wait until you are your crazy, busy, happy self again.

Please keep Jackson in your prayers today.

I'll continue to update so check back. 

2 comments:

  1. So sorry to hear about baby Jack, it breaks my heart!! Prayers are with all of you!! hoping for a quick recovery for Jack!!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. This brought me to tears :( Im not even a mother but I can only imagine how scary it is when your babies get sick. Hope he gets well very soon!

    ReplyDelete