Doctors, Doctors, and More Doctors

It has been a really rough week at the Borchert House:


Friday: Brennan at the doctor for severe allergies
Tuesday: Ian at the doctor for a stomach bug and double ear infection; Mom having Root Canal
Wednesday: Dylan in ER for swallowing a magnetic marble


Then the world goes crazy:


Wednesday night, Nolan got some sort of insect bite. I guess that he scratched it because it got very infected by the next morning. When he woke up and I saw his face, I immediately called his pediatrician, Dr. Holzen. We saw her within 45 minutes and she diagnosed him with an infected bug bite. She told us to keep an eye on him and if it got worse, call her or take him to Vanderbilt Children's Hospital. So I kept an eye on him all day. This is what he looked like around 11am on Thursday:



We started him on Cleosin, a strong antibiotic used to kill off staph infections, though they didn't know what he had. As the day continued, the swelling and redness got worse. By 4, I was afraid that the medicine wasn't going to catch it in time, so I called the doctor. She'd already left for the day, so I took him down to Vanderbilt Children's Hospital where they examined him. After the exam and observation, they told me that Nolan had Cellulitis. The only saving grace was that there wasn't any fluid pockets to have to drain, so they sent us home with directions to increase the antibiotic and keep an eye on his temperature.


Thursday night was a long, long night. I was scared that something would happen to him while we were asleep, so Nolan slept with me. He never developed a fever or had any vomiting or diarrhea. When we awoke in the morning, the swelling had gone down slightly and the regular color was starting to come back to some of the check, but the redness had started spreading down the back of his neck, so we were off to the doctor again!


The doctor looked at it, and while it looked worse than the morning before, it actually looked better than the night before, so we decided to play it hour by hour. Throughout the day, the swelling slowing started going down and the redness didn't travel any farther. The doctor even called Friday night to check on him. Since he responded well, we continued the antibiotic treatment with Benadryl for the bite itself.

Every hour the swelling is going down and his face is starting to look more and more like himself. I didn't take a picture of him at his worst because it absolutely broke my heart and I never wanted to remember how sad he looked.


Nolan is acting totally normal and is back to being as crazy as ever~ you'd never even know he was sick! So thank you for the prayers and well-wishes. I know they truly made a difference!


*UPDATE* I took all three boys to the doctor this morning (9/21/09). Nolan is looking fabulous. He'll continue his medication for the next week but he doesn't need to go to the doctor again! Brennan, along with his severe allergies, has a sinus infection. Poor baby! Those are the worst! And Ian's ear infections are not getting much better, so he got an antibiotic shot today to replace the remainder of the oral antibiotic (since he REFUSES to take it~ it takes both Don and I to get even a portion of it down).

Hopefully, as much as I love Dr. Holzen and her staff, we don't have to see them again for a long while!