Sorry for the delay in posting but life all to often has plans for us that we didn't expect. I had been planning to put together a post with video of the highlights of our summer when things went a bit awry. After returning from a fun weekend in Houston and Galveston Abate took ill. Started off with a fever and feeling run down. He soon developed a pain in his right leg - but with no apparent trauma or injury. By Wednesday evening (Aug.11) his fever reached 105.8 and it took 6 hours to get it back down. First thing Thursday we were at at Doctor's office, x-rays were clear but his blood test were pointing to some kind of inflammation. We decided to monitor him for the next 24 hours. Fever kept returning and by Friday morning he was struggling to walk. More blood tests and the inflammation markers were going up. He was sent for a MRI, and then an hour later another x-ray. Ninety minutes later we were on our way to the Emergency room at Scott and White hospital in Temple where a team of Pediatric Orthopedists was waiting. More blood tests and x-rays and a preliminary diagnosis of Osteomyelitis - an infection in his femur.
Abate was admitted right away to the Children's Hospital at Scott and White and was started on 3 different antibiotics while we awaited results from the blood cultures to pinpoint the bacteria causing the infection. By Monday evening we had good news. It was a non-resistant staph and could be easily treated. We caught it early before any damage was done to the bone so he wouldn't require surgery. He would only need to be on IV medication for 6 days and since he was a good candidate for oral meds (very high dose antibiotics) he will be able to take them for 6 weeks. He will need to be monitored closely though. We will be back at the Infectious Disease Doctor this Friday (more blood tests) and then next Wednesday sees the Orthopedic Pediatrician. As long as he continues to improve we should be able to switch his care back over to our Family Doctor in Gatesville in a few weeks.
Osteomyelitis can be a very serious illness. The doctors took this very seriously. They told us what all the possibilities were - best case scenario to worst case scenario. For Abate to be so unlucky to get this (and we still don't know how and probably never will)he was truly blessed that he fell into the best case scenario throughout his first weeks treatment. It has been very hard for him. Abate is not one to lay around and being stuck in a hospital bed with tubes in his arm for 6 days was torture. It was of course made worse since it was the last week of summer vacation. Those final days of playing in the pool, riding bikes with his friends and just being a kid were taken away from him. He knows though how lucky he was that this was diagnosed early and his prognosis is excellent. It was a scary 11 days.
I will try later this week to put that summer review together and post it. I still have a lot of film editing to do and I'm not sure just how much time I'll have. I'm still trying to get caught up at home. It wasn't just Abate going into the hospital -when it's a child, the parents go in too!
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