Emergency Room Visit

 

Gosh, what a sad few days...

Last Friday when I picked up Cooper from school he was running around, playing outside, going down the slide - you know, being the non-stop buddy that he always is. As soon as I picked him up I thought he felt quite warm but just figured it was because he had been playing hard. We went home, played some more, ate dinner and played some more. Right before bath time I thought he was still pretty dang hot - so I checked his temp...sure enough, it was 103.5! As soon as I took his temp he turned into a fussy and clingy little boy. It's almost like he knew "my mommy knows I'm sick so now I'll act like I am!". So wierd. Anyways - he cried through his entire bath and we gave him some motrin and put him to bed...that night of sleep turned into a night of tossing and turning and constantly waking up with Coop...pretty much ZERO SLEEP! On Saturday morning the temp went down to 103...but he was still playful and happy. When he woke up from his nap he felt like fire - and he ended up being 105.9! That was scary! I called the advice line and they said see if it goes down with Motrin in the next 30 minutes - if not, call back. I waited an hour after Motrin and it was still 105.9...called again and they said to bring him in to the ER. We did and we spent the next 3 hours there.

I actually was quite impressed...They registered us right away and we met with a nurse and then they gave Cooper his own hospital room. This was all in the first 30 minutes. He even had to dress into hospital clothes. Of course, by this time, he was ready to play...a whole new place with tons of buttons to press - like he could really just lay in that bed the whole time. We tried to keep him in the bed by reading books and feeding him crackers, but after awhile he was over it. He would get down from the bed, push the bed buttons, pull the cords, say "Hi" to everyone walking by, make his monkey sounds. He even tried to escape the room a couple times! All of this with an ultrahigh fever.  

Check out his ER demeanor in this video...

Anyways, they ended up checking his ears, nose, throat, breathing - no issues...so they thought the only thing could maybe be a urinary infection. The Doctor said, "For a child this age we can take the urine from his diaper, which we do not suggest because stuff in the diaper can interfere with the tests or we can put a catheter in to get urine for the test." Theres no way I could watch them put a catheter in him - and then I realized - hey, Cooper goes pee in the toilet about once a day - why can't he just pee in a cup. I told the Doctor this and she said "Well you can try..." but I'm pretty sure she was doubtful. Chad and I took Coop to the restroom...he stood in front of the toilet like normal, I held the cup and he pee'd away! I've never been so happy to see pee in a cup! We walked out with the cup and Cooper suddenly became the hospital hero! We could hear all the nurses at the nurses station saying "Oh my gosh, that 22-month old baby boy just pee'd in a cup" and "he's a hero!" and "Can you believe that baby did that?" THANK GOODNESS we had been practicing going in the potty...

 

 

Cooper's urine test came back normal.  They figured it must be a virus and we were on our way home.  Sunday his temp was still as high as 105, Monday down to 103 and then Tuesday it finally broke!  It was a long and scary few days and we are so happy to have our healthy baby boy back to normal.  What an experience!