Saturday, November 10, 2007

Children's Healthcare of Atlanta at Scottish Rite

So we spent last weekend in the hospital with Jackson. What started as simple pink eye turned into an ugly cellulitis infection in the skin around his eye. This family has been through the wringer lately, health-wise, and I for one am hoping that we are now golden till spring. Here's what happened.

First, Mike got sick about a month ago. He had sort of flu-like symptoms. Then Jack got sick, and his was diagnosed as RSV (also pink eye and an ear infection). The next week, just as he was poised to go back to daycare, Maggie got sick with the exact same symptoms, but tested negative for RSV. She was down for 3 days and then we went back to daycare and work for 2 days and Jack got sick again with the same mess as before. Well, things were humming along and he seemed to be improving when I got sick. Whatever it was really knocked me on my rear. Just as I was convalescing in bed (somewhere around hour 15 of sleeping and sweating), Jack's pink eye had cleared up, but his eye was still swollen and red around the outside. Mike took him to the pediatrician and they were concerned about cellulitis. They sent us over to Scottish Rite (the children's hospital) for a CT scan to investigate.

Mike dragged me out of bed and we headed to the ER with Jack. After tons of waiting around (and me lying on the ER stretcher in misery), we got the CT scan. It showed that there was a cellulitis infection in the skin around the eye, but it had not gone back into the orbit of the eye. They decided to admit him for IV antibiotics all weekend. Did I mention that by the end of the day, Mike and I had both developed pink eye as well?

Anyway, Jack was in the hospital from Friday through late Monday afternoon. All went well and he was discharged without incident. He went back to daycare on Thursday and everyone is on the mend (well, by everyone I mean myself).

So there is our latest health adventure. If you are pretty much anybody except for Mike's parents and Ashley (whom we called to pick up Maggie from daycare Friday), you are probably wondering why we didn't call you. There are two reasons: 1) We didn't want to worry you unnecessarily, and 2) I was sooo sick, I was completely out of it. But we are all fine now and looking forward to Thanksgiving and the holiday season. I just have to get through these parent conferences next week first. (Ugh!)