My Poor Little Man

As you know Eli has been down and out lately, on the upside it appears he is starting to feel better. No fever since last night, yeah!! Nic is responding to the antibiotic just fine, Eli was not. After not being able to get his temp down from 102, we went to the doctor on Wednesday afternoon. As the doctor put it, his ears were still bad but starting to respond to the medicine and his upper respiratory infection wasn't going anywhere. That's when he brought out the dreaded word any child does not want to hear, a shot. The verdict was to get a penicillin shot in the rear end hoping this would help and to speed up the process. Did it work? Not at first, he was still not wanting to eat or drink and his temp would not go down for anything. He was wearing t-shirts and shorts and cold wash clothes on his forehead at bed, a resistant little virus was hurting my poor baby. Yesterday morning we still had a fever and he still would not eat or drink anything and starting telling me his teeth and tongue hurt, he was getting dehydrating and to top it off the antibiotic's side effects on children, going to the bathroom all the time. I call the doctor and talk to the nurse she tells me she will call me back and let me know what to do but be prepared in case I need to take him to the hospital. The doctor, not the nurse, calls back and tells me to force him to drink Gatorade or pedialyte (he threw it up) every twenty minutes or we will be going to the hospital for blood work and an iv. I get him to drink a little bottle of lemon lime Gatorade throughout the day, two teaspoons every twenty minutes. I know he was hating me and gagging sometimes, but who wants to see their child in the hospital, been there done that too many times for about six months before and after he turned one. By yesterday afternoon his fever had gone down and he didn't have one by the time he went to bed and right now it is only 99.5, yeah. He is starting to get his appetite back and even drinking lots of water. By getting that penicillin shot, I am thinking this got him over the hump, but know I need to fatten this boy up, he has lost two pounds this past week, not a lot for some kids but a lot when he was only 28 pounds to begin with. He asked me this morning why his pajamas weren't staying up and I told him because he wasn't eating from being sick. He responds, "I just need to eat so I can get bigger." He knows he missed two days of school and hates it, they are preparing for a Christmas program in a few weeks and he wanted to be there so bad. Now that he is getting better he can go back to school on Tuesday. Thank goodness because getting out of bed twenty times at night really puts a damper on getting sleep. Finally I just decided to put those little children's character couches together (you can get at Wal-Mart or Target) and sleep in his room that way I wasn't getting up multiple times and so that Doug could get some sleep. Oh what a parent will do to comfort their child and still try to get a little sleep for themselves. I am hoping we are on top of this lovely little battle that has taken over my boys for the last week and a half.