On Thursday morning Aimee and the kids came over for breakfast and we pondered what to do with the day. I suggested a trip to Sauvies Island, and after packing a lunch away we went. The kids had a really great time, playing on the beach and in the water. Here is Rowan getting ready to hit the water with the boys:
The kids in the water:
The cutest baby alive, soaking up the sun and water:
Killian waiting for the waves from a passing barge to wash him away:
And Killian playing:
In what would later be the suspected cause of the scarier part of this story. Friday morning Killian woke up and came to show me a "bug bite" on his arm, close to his elbow. Looking at it, everything appeared normal, although the bite was larger than normal, about the size of a dime, and a quarter sized area of skin surrounding it was hard to the touch. I decided to keep an eye on it, and later in the day discovered that it was oozing a clear sticky substance, and the hard area was now about 2 inches wide. The bite had started to get little blisters on it, and a white ring surrounded the area, along with quite a bit of swelling. We went to the doctor Friday afternoon, and they told us "its a normal bite...everything is fine". Unsure, but not knowing what else to do, we headed home. The swelling continued, and the hard area kept getting bigger, until Friday night right before bed, his arm looked like this:
As you can tell by looking at the normal sized top part of his arm, the elbow and area surrounding the bite are pretty swollen and it was really hard under the skin. We decided to wait and see what the morning was going to bring, and sent him off to bed. The next morning, the arm was much more swollen, and I discovered small, freckle like dots moving in a path from the bite up towards his armpit. When I finally got the doctor on the phone, he advised that we immediately go to the emergency room, because the dots were a sign that the infection was moving towards his lymph nodes, and would soon be in his blood stream, a much more serious matter. We rushed to the ER, and were admitted to a room in less than 15 minutes. They weren't fooling around. They started Killian on two different types of IV antibiotics, ones so strong that they are not even available in pill form. One of them had a crazy side effect, and for a while Killian's face and whole upper body were bright red. He looked like a very uncomfortable tomato!! They had already told us that the chance of admittance was pretty high, so I wasn't surprised when they said that we needed to stay the night....and possibly up to 48 hours! We got settled upstairs in the pediatric unit, and all the nurses and staff were so great! We were in isolation, so Killian couldn't check out the play areas, but we got to watch lots of movies, and Killian ordered tons of "room service" food. They continued with the super strong antibiotics, a third one this time, every 6 hours. Which means we didn't sleep that well, between them coming in to hook up the IV meds, and the stat checks for blood pressure and such. Killian was a total trooper throughout everything, he was in great spirits, and the nurses loved him. We saw the doctor this morning around 11:00 and she said that while the labs weren't back, they think he ended up with either a staph or strep bacterial infection deep inside his arm tissue. Probably a bug bite, that then got some sort of bacteria in it, which then went wild and caused this massive infection. It moved so quickly...in less than 24 hours, it had swollen his arm to at least twice its normal size, and the hard infection area covered everything inside this black line, which continued around the back of his arm, the lines nearly touching:
So imagine his poor little arm, swollen, hard as a rock, and a gross looking mixture of red and dark purple splotches. I didn't get a hospital picture, this one is from when we got home today. We caught it before it got to his blood, thank goodness, because that would have been a much longer hospital stay and many more medicines and tests. The swelling and redness was way down this morning, so the antibiotics are doing their germ ass kicking job well. Hurray! We are on the road to recovery...and wont be going for a swim in the Willamette anytime soon :)
The kids in the water:
The cutest baby alive, soaking up the sun and water:
Killian waiting for the waves from a passing barge to wash him away:
And Killian playing:
In what would later be the suspected cause of the scarier part of this story. Friday morning Killian woke up and came to show me a "bug bite" on his arm, close to his elbow. Looking at it, everything appeared normal, although the bite was larger than normal, about the size of a dime, and a quarter sized area of skin surrounding it was hard to the touch. I decided to keep an eye on it, and later in the day discovered that it was oozing a clear sticky substance, and the hard area was now about 2 inches wide. The bite had started to get little blisters on it, and a white ring surrounded the area, along with quite a bit of swelling. We went to the doctor Friday afternoon, and they told us "its a normal bite...everything is fine". Unsure, but not knowing what else to do, we headed home. The swelling continued, and the hard area kept getting bigger, until Friday night right before bed, his arm looked like this:
As you can tell by looking at the normal sized top part of his arm, the elbow and area surrounding the bite are pretty swollen and it was really hard under the skin. We decided to wait and see what the morning was going to bring, and sent him off to bed. The next morning, the arm was much more swollen, and I discovered small, freckle like dots moving in a path from the bite up towards his armpit. When I finally got the doctor on the phone, he advised that we immediately go to the emergency room, because the dots were a sign that the infection was moving towards his lymph nodes, and would soon be in his blood stream, a much more serious matter. We rushed to the ER, and were admitted to a room in less than 15 minutes. They weren't fooling around. They started Killian on two different types of IV antibiotics, ones so strong that they are not even available in pill form. One of them had a crazy side effect, and for a while Killian's face and whole upper body were bright red. He looked like a very uncomfortable tomato!! They had already told us that the chance of admittance was pretty high, so I wasn't surprised when they said that we needed to stay the night....and possibly up to 48 hours! We got settled upstairs in the pediatric unit, and all the nurses and staff were so great! We were in isolation, so Killian couldn't check out the play areas, but we got to watch lots of movies, and Killian ordered tons of "room service" food. They continued with the super strong antibiotics, a third one this time, every 6 hours. Which means we didn't sleep that well, between them coming in to hook up the IV meds, and the stat checks for blood pressure and such. Killian was a total trooper throughout everything, he was in great spirits, and the nurses loved him. We saw the doctor this morning around 11:00 and she said that while the labs weren't back, they think he ended up with either a staph or strep bacterial infection deep inside his arm tissue. Probably a bug bite, that then got some sort of bacteria in it, which then went wild and caused this massive infection. It moved so quickly...in less than 24 hours, it had swollen his arm to at least twice its normal size, and the hard infection area covered everything inside this black line, which continued around the back of his arm, the lines nearly touching:
So imagine his poor little arm, swollen, hard as a rock, and a gross looking mixture of red and dark purple splotches. I didn't get a hospital picture, this one is from when we got home today. We caught it before it got to his blood, thank goodness, because that would have been a much longer hospital stay and many more medicines and tests. The swelling and redness was way down this morning, so the antibiotics are doing their germ ass kicking job well. Hurray! We are on the road to recovery...and wont be going for a swim in the Willamette anytime soon :)