infection...

Worried sick about Jimmy.

The site on his arm where Jimmy had his "sensor" became pretty infected Tuesday morning... and it got worse yesterday... and it's bigger in surface area today, but not as red or hot or painful (medicine's probably working, but it shouldn't be getting bigger.) They did a swab of it to culture it for anything... It came back as "strep" which was suprising to me (thought that was only in throats.) Worst case scenario is IV antibiotics - say a prayer that it doesn't come to that...

It started Tuesday morning when Jimmy told me his arm hurt, and I just thought it was his usual complaint that it was uncomfortable. It didn't occur to me to look at the site since he complains regularly about it. Monday morning is when it should have been changed, but that's a whole separate story... in a nutshell, it wasn't changed when it should have been and although it's not the norm for a site to become infected so quickly, this is Jimmy (and let's face it, me) we're dealing with... He also said his head hurt when he coughed and he was kind of not himself Tuesday morning... I chalked it up to possibly having allergies... No fever, no sore throat.

So, I dropped him off at school as usual and called his nurse to alert her that he wasn't himself when, while I was on the phone, he appeared in her office asking for an icepack for his arm...

She looked at it, and told me to come to her office right away. It was swollen, red, hot to the touch, and when we took the site out, puss came out. I'm a terrible mother. I didn't even look at it. I failed him and I've put myself through the equivalent of writing, "I will not ignore my son if he says his site hurts" one thousand times on the chalk board. Needless to say, my principal told me to do whatever I needed to do. She's awesome... So, at the doctor, they "swabbed" to get a culture. I stupidly asked what they were checking for and he said that they just wanted to rule everything out. Even more stupidly, I asked what specifically he wanted to rule out. "Things like staff, mrsa..." was the answer.

WHAT???

Imagination combined with nerves is a very bad thing. He had to talk me down from the ceiling and I was able to relax and know that it wasn't either, BUT in the slim possibility that it WAS either, he was putting Jimmy on a broad spectrum heavy duty antibiotic. So, warm compresses, bacitracin, antibiotic and he'll be fine.

Unfortunately, the infection site grew steadily throughout the course of the day. I traced the original red spot at about 11 a.m. It grew at least twice the size by nightfall. We traced the outline of the redness at about 11 pm, and by morning it grew to near his elbow.

Jim stayed home with him yesterday, and brought him to the doctor again (because it was getting bigger and not receeding). They put himi on a 2nd antibiotic which would take care of "staff" if in fact that's what it was. (We still didn't have the results of the culture they took on Tuesday.)

In the meantime, on Tuesday, he was put on claritin for allergies and had a loose tooth (the front one of course) pulled due to the fact that it had a dead spot on it (from the time he fell down the steps when he was 3 and knocked it a bit crooked.) We didn't notice the dark spot until it became loose recently, since it was on the back of it. Dr. Mischel (my dentist since I've had teeth) made the decision to pull it - to make sure it came out in one piece and wasn't broken up... and he used what looked like ACTUAL PLIERS!!! Thank God Jimmy is extremely light sensitive and closes his eyes whenever he's in the dentist chair - he never saw the pliers.

So, between the arm pain, the puss, the probing swab culture, the antibiotics, the allergy medicine, the pulled tooth and the hovering mother, this poor kid has been through the ringer.

My husband cried at the doctor's office yesterday. The pediatrician put his arm around him - he felt so badly, too (same doctor who diagnosed Jimmy with diabetes and cried right along with me at the time). Jim wants to know what this little boy has done to deserve this. It's not fair and it's down right infuriating.

So, back to the dr. today, and a new outline of the latest size... The doctor is happy that it's less red, hurts less, not as hot, has no fever - and although it's getting bigger in area, the other things are more significant in hinting toward it might be healing...

You can see in the picture that we outlined the area where it started (the smallest outline.) Last night's outline is the dotted line. This morning's outline is the darkest outermost line.

My poor little guy. My heart breaks for him!

On a happier note, I just took a goofy picture of him so you can see his missing front tooth! He's so stinkin cute I can't get over it!

I'll keep you posted...

Love,

June

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UPDATE!!! Infection took 4 days before it began to recede... but it's all better! So relieved that it's over for now... Rachel at the Molly center says that she's NEVER seen an infection from the sensor - only skin irritation. Our stupid luck that Jimmy is her first case. If there are 100 children traipsing down the steps, Jimmy will be the one to fall down and knock a tooth loose. If there 25 kids in the outfield practicing how to swing a bat, Jimmy is the one who gets hit in the head with the bat requiring a trip to the ER. If there are 5,000 people going up the escalator every hour, then Jimmy is of course the one who, when the escalator stops is the one who requires 6 stitches on his shin where the shin met the teeth of the escalator steps... All of these actually happened... At this point, we're not only used to it -- we actually expect it. But, he always has a way of finding the silver lining and coming out on top. He's an amazing boy, and my world is enriched with him in it each and every day!!!

I love you Jimmy!
Peace,
Mommy