Sweet Sick Boy Goes to the Hospital

Davis continued to be sick during the week. He never made it to day camp and he only made it to 1.5 nights of VBS. Wednesday we went to the pediatrician. They were worried with all his abdominal pain that he might have appendicitis, so off we went to the imaging center for an abdominal X-ray and also ultrasound. The next morning we were back at the pediatrician's office again. The tests were inconclusive and Davis was severely dehydrated by now. He also had a swollen tongue and leg and neck pain. We were sent straight over to the Leesburg ER and spent all day Thursday there. They ran a cheek swab, a nose swab, three sets of bloodwork, a neck X-ray and a CT scan with contrast. At the end of the afternoon they had no real explanations of all his symptoms. No one could find his appendix to rule it out. So they transferred us to Arnold Palmer Children's Hospital in downtown Orlando. Davis rode by ambulance - the pediatric acute care team came up from Orlando to get him. He watched Spiderman on the tv in the transport and got a stuffed bear as a present.

Arnold Palmer Children's Hospital is a wonderful place. Thursday evening they got him stabilized with IV fluids and started reviewing all of his bloodwork results and scans and ran a few additional tests and did a few different exams. Daryl and I were able to "sleep" in the room with him here on a cot and a recliner. Friday morning we saw pediatricians, pediatric gastroenterologists, as well as the pediatric infectious disease doctors. By mid-afternoon they seemed to have sorted through all his symptoms and get going on treating the few different things Davis has going on, none of which are scary by themselves.

The infectious disease doctor ruled out some really weird viruses. It seems as though Davis caught a virus that really took hold and caused him fever, bad diarrhea and severe dehydration. The dehydration caused abdominal pain and cramping as well as leg pain. Since he’s been getting IV fluids the fever has gone down although not gone entirely away. The abdominal pain and leg pain are thankfully gone now. 

The radiologists at home saw cause for alarm on his ultrasound and CT scan with what they said was lots of fluid in the belly. There were all kinds of concerns raised in the previous few days about his appendix, his kidneys and liver. The pediatric radiologist here feels that was an overread and says that many kids Davis age have a little fluid in their abdominal cavity and he doesn’t see enough to be concerned especially when all of Davis’ bloodwork shows no signs of cause for alarm.  

Doctors discovered today that Davis has a bad “silent” ear infection in his left ear. Only symptom was tenderness in his neck and mouth pain which is why he ended up with a neck X-ray yesterday. IV antibiotics have been started. Finally it looks as if Davis might have knicked his tongue on his braces and picked up a bit of an infection in his mouth which caused his swollen tongue. The antibiotics should help that too and they have prescribed a medicated mouthwash to help his mouth feel better. This will in turn help him to be able to eat and stay hydrated on his own without the IV fluids soon. 

In the doctors’ words Davis ended up with a perfect storm of things that made for some very confusing symptoms. We’re so thankful to be here in the right place where they have figured this out and with things that can be explained and treated easily through his IV. It looks like one more night here for more fluids and meds and monitoring and they’re hopeful we can go home tomorrow.