The nurses had drilled into our heads that any fever was extremely dangerous for G and could signal an infection in his heart. I rushed to the phone to call the nurse line at Children's Hospital Boston and after a few phone calls back and forth, we were told to head to the local Children's Hospital and have him evaluated immediately. TDH Man and I packed up our feverish, lethargic little man and headed back to the hospital.
Our house is oddly enough about equidistant from two children's hospitals and so when the nurse told us to get to the ER, I asked her which one we should go to. She said "whichever is closest", and so we headed to that one, which wasn't Children's Hospital Boston. Let me just say that was a mistake on our part. We get to the hospital and because G is a post-surgical cardiac patient, they triage him fairly quickly and get us settled in a room. Because he's burning up, they start an IV line again and I can tell he's not feeling well because he basically just lets them set him up. They brace his arm and he lies on my lap, alternatively sweating, napping and cuddling with me. This is not our boy at all.
They call the cardiologist on duty who evaluates him, asks us a bunch of questions and bascially tells us that they think he's caught a virus. Right away, something doesn't sit well with me and I'm not comfortable being there. G has had no other symptoms, he's just gone through major surgery and we've been educated on the dangers of a fever and all they can say is that he's gotten a virus? No, not flying. The doctor then tells us that it's probably best to admit him for observation and as soon as he leaves the room, I turn to TDH Man and say "If they want to admit G, can we refuse and head back to Children's Hospital Boston?" Without blinking an eye, my wonderful husband says "Of course" even though it means that he's going to have to drive 40 minutes back to our house to get clothes for all three of us and then another hour to get to the hospital, he doesn't blink an eye. You may not know this, but I am in love with my husband and this is just one more reason why.
After discussing it with the Boston Pedi Cardio unit, the cardiologist on-duty comes back to tell us that they will indeed need to admit G overnight at the very least. That's when I tell them that we want him moved to Boston and not admitted to that hospital. I don't tell them that it's partially because I'm grossed out by the peeling paint in the exam room we're sitting in, or that it's because of the rather large, possibly moving hairballs under the guerney that G and I are lying on, or that it's because of the three empty hand-sanitizing stations (seriously, people, you work in a hospital and you can't fill them?!), but instead I tell them that I want a continuity of care that I don't think they can accomplish for a cardiac patient. Yes, I put on my 'if you can't say something nice' face even when my post-operative child is burning up with a fever and I'm panicking every which way to Sunday.
So, because they're already given G and IV and fluids, they aren't allowed to simply discharge him and let us drive him back to CH Boston. Oh, no. We get to now take a ride in an ambulance! Fast forward a few hours later, and I'm sitting in the front seat of an ambulance while TDH Man is driving home in the opposite direction to repack bags for all of us and poor G is screaming "Momma!" as every single bump jars the ambulance and jostles the two EMTs and the cardiac doctor who's been charged to watch over all the machines to which G is now reattached. At least now I can look back and say this was the peak of our entire ordeal.
We finally get back to CH Boston and lo-and-behold, we get checked back into the same exact room that G just left less than 24 hours before. They hook him up to some antibiotics, more fluids and retape his IV. Then we wait while they draw more blood, run more tests and basically try to ensure that he doesn't have a pericardial infection brewing. TDH Man finally meets up with us in the hospital room and tells me that he happened to just run into Dr. Emani, G's heart surgeon, on the street and he says that he's heard G is back in the hospital. He then tells my husband his theory of why G has the fever and it turns out that he's probably had a reaction to the heart-lung machine and he's suffering from atelectasis. Lucky for us, G's fever breaks and just 24 hours later, he's feeling much, much better.
Just keeping him busy until discharge, again. |
In the end, we have no real idea of what caused his fever, but I'm happy to report, it's been a year and our boy is happy, healthy, crazy and amazing. He's overcome obstacles we had no idea were ahead of him and we've been so unbelieveably blessed to be this boy's parents.
I joke with TDH Man that God put three holes in G's heart because he didn't have the one hole in his ear and his holey-heart was one way to prepare us for the surgeries ahead. We don't know His plan, but I like to think that it was all preparation for something amazing for our boy.
Phew! It's time to go home! |
And don't worry. I'll keep y'all posted.