ER Day 2

1/3/2010 Sunday

Paul and I are getting ready to go back to school today, vacation is OVER…dun dun dun!
We got up and too William to Children’s ER again to get his bottom checked and another does of GCSF. We were lucky to arrive when we did because it wasn’t busy yet and we got right in.

Right before we left home, I changed a poopy diaper and found that William’s abscess had turned into something resembling a whitehead. (Gross I know!) As I wiped his bottom it broke open and started to weep. We were a little nervous, as we weren’t sure if this was a good thing or not.

We showed this to the ER Dr. and he said that he was very happy to hear that it broke open on its own and was draining. He said to continue to help it drain when possible. He thought the infection site looked worse though today but later said that we might attribute that to William’s higher neutrophil levels from the GCSF medicine. (Remember neutrophils make pus, and redness when you have an infection to help fight it).

The main purpose of today’s visit was to get William another dose of GCSF. They were planning on giving this to him in a shot today. The ER Dr. came though and said that the pharmacy was telling him that due to the concentration they had, it would take 3 shots to get all of the GCSF into the poor baby. The ER Dr. recommended giving it to him in an IV instead. He really wanted to avoid poking William as much as possible. The Dr. said that since we were going ahead with the I.V. he and his team of Dr.’s would like to give William a does of I.V. antibiotics as well to hit the infection hard one more time. We agreed and got ready to start all that.

Our nurse was really great, she was the same one we had yesterday and she was the same nurse who treated William when we first brought him to the ER on December 4th. It was nice to know she really cared about William. We’re so lucky to get all the compliments we do about what a cute, happy, and well-behaved baby we have! Our nurse Holly was no exception. She loved flirting and teasing William and she was very gentle with him. Her first attempt at his I.V. didn’t work out though so she had to try his other arm. (So 2 pokes today).

While his I.V. meds dripped, our Hematologist Dr. Schultz popped in to visit and see how everything was going. She apologized for the GCSF mix up, as there was a misunderstanding with the doses. She explained that it IS totally possible to give him the right dose in just one shot and that they do it every day with cancer patients in the Hem/Onc clinic. It’s just that the ER Dr.’s weren’t as familiar with this drug and so they decided to go the I.V. route. It’s funny how things work out though because I felt better in the end giving him the I.V. antibiotics so we can really fight this infection.

William handled everything very well yet again. He deserves a pony for sure!

He did not sleep at all last night and we spent hours dealing with him whimpering and being inconsolable. (I think it was a combo of no good naps and 3 nasty pokes at the ER yesterday). He continued to be a little clingy once we got home today, but I gave him a nice warm bath to soak his bottom (And to wash off the poop he managed to get all over him from a diaper blow-out!) and he has been taking a VERY long afternoon nap.

Tomorrow afternoon we have to take William back to the Hematology/Oncology clinic for a check up and the last scheduled shot of GCSF. We will do a CBC to see what his neutrophil levels are and try to decide if we can discontinue GCSF for a while. Then we’ll see where we go from there. We have plenty of creams and ointments and oral antibiotics to tide us over till then!

Hope we get some sleep tonight or it will be a long first day back at school.
~Katie, Paul and William