Sick again…Tyler first, then Tommy, and still Tyler….

On Friday, March 2, Tyler had a pretty yucky cough. He had SO much congestion and just sounded awful. I was worried about RSV because it had been going around, so I had called the nurse and she set up the earliest appointment they had that day-4:00pm. The nurse practitioner checked him out and tested him for RSV. That was negative-yay, but his left ear was really red. Because it was going to be the weekend, she went ahead and gave me antibiotics for his ear, some numbing drops, as well as a decongestant for his cough. I was really surprised by this because I had never been given that for Tyler or Tommy in Fort Worth. Apparently they are bringing decongestant for kiddos back, in small doses. Well, we started all that and the decongestant seemed to help him sleep, but I didn’t give it to him the 4x a day as subscribed….just as needed. One week later, last Friday, Tommy had gotten a pretty bad cough and wasn’t sleeping well (even worse than normal, crying even with Matt in his room.) We stayed home the last couple days and finally got out, going to Cheer Texas so Tommy could jump around and play with some church friends. We were there only 15 minutes before Tommy was coughing so hard he couldn’t stop, and then would gag. I still hadn’t noticed a difference with Tyler as far as his congestion and because he had so much, coughing so hard, he was throwing up in the middle of the night. SO, back to the doctor, or nurse practitioner I should say.

She ended up saying, if their coughs sounded barky it was probably croup, so she gave both of the boys a steroid for a few days. She also checked BOTH of the boy’s ears. Tyler’s was still red but said it was probably from all his congestion and to finish the antibiotic. She said Tommy’s ears were fine. I’ll repeat: she said Tommy’s ears were fine. HA…… After dinner Friday, Tommy out of the blue said, “Mommy, my ear hurts.” Mother-of-the-year said, “oh, you probably bumped it, it’s okay.” He said it one more time and then that was it. I thought, surely they were fine since they were just checked. About an hour later after finishing up a haircut, and heading to get the steroid prescription Tommy starts crying, and crying, and crying. He won’t say what’s wrong and it turns into screaming. I was getting so frustrated saying, “Tommy, use your words, what’s wrong?” Finally, as we pulled into the garage, I remembered what he had said. I then said, “Tommy, is it your ears?” “YESSS!” he says, with more crying and tears. Oh I felt awful, and what do you do at 7:30 pm on a Friday?  I immediately gave him the numbing drops from Tyler’s last visit to see if that would calm him down. After putting them in, I put a tiny piece of cotton ball in it to hold them in and he SCREAMED bloody murder. I thought his ear drum had just busted. It scared me to death. So immediately we got back into the car and headed to an urgent care. Tommy was crying the ENTIRE time we were there, about a 35 minute wait.  He was in so much pain. The doctor quickly checked both ears and said they were both infected. I couldn’t believe it and anger came as I thought about that nurse practitioner. I know everyone can make mistakes but….ugh. Tommy’s has never cried in pain like that. His ears had to have looked just awful inside, so how do you miss that?

I had told the doctor he had been on Amoxicillin not that long ago, and he said, ‘it’s a good antibiotic but sometimes it just doesn’t work.” So he subscribed Azithromycin, 1 teaspoon, once a day, for 3 days. He also issued some drops with Hydrocortisone and told us to also give motrin/tylenol. With all that, the steroids, and Tyler’s meds we could have easily started our own pharmacy! Nevertheless, once given, it finally calmed Tommy down and he ended sleeping well that night….such a long and albeit expensive day…. Saturday we took it easy and Sunday we kept the boys home from church.

I have since switched doctors, not because his actual doctor was bad, but because I rarely ever got to see the doctor. It was always the nurse practitioner. The doctor I changed to mainly sees sick kiddos and has her nurse practitioner see most of the well-visits. That makes perfect sense and is completely fine with me.

Today I made an appointment for Tyler with the new doc because his cough is still awful, he was waking up every two hours crying last night, and had a low-grade fever. She tested for flu and that was negative. She said his ears were red and that was probably causing the fever. We are going to start a new antibiotic and give a small dose of Benadryl at night. I have to say I’m already happy with this new doctor’s office. I called in the morning, got an appointment at 11:00 am, barely sat down before calling Tyler’s name (usually had to wait about 20-30 minutes for each visit with the other office), and got to see the actual doctor. Wahoo…although,  hopefully we won’t be back except for Tyler’s 9 month well check and Tommy’s ear check up. We decided to postpone that until after Tyler's done with his antibiotics so I don't have to come in an extra time. I'm pretty sure we're already really close to our deductible anyway.... 

Pictures are of Saturday’s recoup-the fireman and baby chomping on apples I sure love them and hope they get to feeling so much better.