My Poor Little Sammy

Sammy had a rough night last night.  When I put her in her crib for the night, she screamed, which she never does.  She finally fell asleep but was fitful all night.  I chalked it up to teething and let her cry it out.  This morning, I brought her into our bed to nurse (which is part of our normal morning routine).  And as she nursed, I kissed her forehead and thought she felt awfully hot.  I then brought her back to her room to change her diaper and took her temperature.  Sure enough, she had 102.2 at 6:45 am in the morning.  Ugh.  So I walked with her into the kitchen where the light was brighter and told my husband she was sick.  And when he looked at her, he said, "Man, she looks really sick."  And at that point, I looked at her face and saw that it was puffy/swollen and a bit red underneath her right eye.  I was able to make an early doctor's appointment and we were out the door by 8 am.

At 8:30 am, at the doctor's office, Sammy's temperature was 103.1 and she was burning up.  I couldn't believe how hot she felt.  And she was so miserable.  She couldn't even manage to cry.  She just sort of whined and rubbed her head against my shoulder.  My normally happy and active baby was so sick!  Here's how she looked at the doctor's office - this was the best I could do to get her to smile.  And you can see how her right eye is swollen and red.

The doctor examined her and said that she had an ear infection in her right ear.  He also said she had periorbital cellulitis, which can get very dangerous quickly because it could lead to a blood infection/sepsis.  Because of that, he wanted to do a CBC/white blood cell count to determine the appropriate course of action.  So my little 8 month old had to get her blood drawn.  She did okay once I nursed her and they were able to find a vein.  After waiting over 1 hour for the blood results, her white cell count came back higher than the doctor's cutoff. This meant that instead of oral antibiotics, she had to get an intramuscular injection of antibiotics.  The volume of the shot was too big for it to go into one leg so they split it up and gave her shots simultaneously in her left and right thigh (so she would only have to suffer the pain once).  We also gave her some motrin.

After that, we went home and she took a long nap.  When she woke up, she smiled at me and I knew that she must be feeling better since it was the first smile she gave me all day.  I could tell that her temp was much lower.  Tomorrow, we go back to the doctor for a re-check.  They will do a clinical assessment of her eye (no more blood tests) and based on that, decide whether to give her another round of antibiotic injections or switch her to oral antibiotics.  We dosed her up with tylenol at 5:30 pm and motrin at 7:15 pm tonight and I'm crossing my fingers that she'll be more comfortable tonight.

The silver lining of all of this?  We caught it early and Sammy should be fine.  Plus, as long as they were drawing her blood, they tested her for lead.  I'm so glad the doctor thought through that and spared us a separate blood draw.  It's great when you get good medical care!

**At just over 8 months of age, Sammy weighed 17 pounds, 1.5 ounces**