My poor Davyn can't seem to catch a break. It seems that we have been to the doctors on and off for 6 weeks. It all started when he got his first ear infection at the beginning of January right after his tubes fell out of his ears. The doctors put him on Augmentin (a stronger antibiotic then Amoxicillian) to rid him of his ear infection. 5 days into his antibiotic, he got a horrible diaper rash that I couldn't get under control so I took him off his meds. About a week later, I took him back into the doctor and was told he had another ear infection in the opposite ear and was also told that his diaper rash had turned into a yeast infection. The doctors gave me Omnicef this time around and a topical cream to try to combat the yeast infection in his diaper area. About a week after his antibiotics were over, I took him back in to make sure his ear infections were gone. While I was there, I had the doctor look at his yeast infection and he said for us to keep using the cream and that it should clear up. This was on a Thursday. Little did I know how quickly the yeast infection would go from something minor to a serious staph infection.
By Monday, Davyn developed a pimple like sore located between his belly button and his genital area. It was no bigger than a pin prick and I didn't think much of it. On Tuesday, the area had grown to the size of a pea and I mention it to Cory. But by Wednesday it was the size of a quarter, the area surrounding it was red and inflamed, and it was tender to the touch. So, I took him back to the doctor where they attempted to squeeze as much ooze out of it as they could and took a culture of it to see what kind of bacteria we were fighting. Again they sent us home with more antibiotics and told us to come back if the area got any bigger. By 8 that night, it had grown to the size a little bigger than a half dollar. Davyn was having a hard time moving around at this point. He was walking hunched over and would scream when he got bumped or tried to straighten up. I called my doctor and she told us to head straight to the ER to get it drained and looked at.
When we got to the ER, the doctor was concerned about how big the mass was getting. They wanted to do an ultra sound to see how much puss was actually in the wound and surrounding area. However, Davyn did not want anyone to touch him. So they gave him morphine and did the ultra sound. At that point, the puss was only in a spot about the size of a quarter and the other spots that were hard were do to the infections. They lanced the area and drained what they could. They also had Davyn hooked up to the IV to give him heavy doses of Antibiotics. They sent us home around mid-night and told us to come back for more Antibiotics in 8 hours. They also wanted to make sure that the swelling and redness was decreasing.
Cory took Davyn back to the hospital at 7 in the morning on Thursday morning for his round of antibiotics. While they were there, Davyn had developed a fever and his blood pressure was slightly elevated. They gave him his meds and then asked that we come back in another 8 hours so that they could check on him and so that he could get another round of antibiotics.
We went back in at 4 and when they looked at the area, they were really concerned about how far down the infection had spread. It had spread almost to the base of his penis. They were also concerned with the fact that he had had many rounds of antibiotics and it didn't seem to be reducing the swelling and redness. At that point the doctor suggested that we sedate Davyn, open him up, drain the puss, and pack the wound so that it had a port to drain out of.
Being a mom and watching your child in so much pain is the most helpless feeling that there is. The worst part for me was that I couldn't explain to Davyn that these people were trying to help him feel better. All he could understand was that every time one of the doctors came into his room he was being held down and hurt. Cory and I agreed that opening the wound and really cleaning it out was probably the best idea for Davyn. Even sedated, Davyn fought them opening him up. He moaned and said ouch and that about broke my heart! They did drain a lot of puss out and I am sure that relieved a lot of the pressure for Davyn.
After the doctor was done, and Davyn had come out of sedation, he expressed his worries. He told us he wanted to keep us over night for observation so that doctors could continuously check on the wound to make sure that it wasn't spreading anymore. He also wanted to keep Davyn on alternating medications through out the night to fight off a broader range of bacteria since we were still waiting on the results of the culture. He also wanted us to stay so that the Pediatric doctor at the hospital could repack the wound with clean dressing in the morning.
By the next day the redness had gone down, and the swelling had subsided a little which was a good sign. However, they had to sedate him again to repack the wound. Instead of putting him all the way under like they did the day before, they gave him something to relax him and to make him loopy. It did not work. 4 of us had to hold him down. His screaming was worse than I have ever heard out of any of my kids, I barley held it together as he was screaming No, Ouch, and struggling to fight us off of him.
On Friday after noon, the Pediatrician said things were looking a lot better and discharged us with the orders to follow up with our primary care physician on Monday.
On Saturday, we were back at the doctors again because the packing had completely come out of his wound and we were told that it was important that it stayed in. Luckily the doctor we saw assessed the area, told us that she didn't see any puss and said that it would be too hard to get packing back in the wound. I was really relieved. I don't think I could have held him down again (this time without drugs) so that they could repack his wound.
We still have a follow up visit with our doctor on Monday to make sure everything is still looking good and to talk about how to try to prevent as much as possible this type of thing happening again.
Unfortunately for us, we got the results back of Davyn's culture Saturday night. I was a little surprised to find out that he has MRSA. I have to admit I don't know much about MRSA, but what little I do know is that it's bad. Once you have it, you will never fully get rid of it. It is a form of bacteria that is resistant to almost all antibiotics. I also know that it is highly contagious when someone has an outbreak. Again, I will have to ask the doctor on Monday what all we can do to prevent something like this happening again, and what we can do to keep it from spreading to the rest of our family.
I am grateful for the doctors and nurses that helped us. They did do a great job with Davyn. They did everything they could to try to explain to him the things that they would do before they did them, and they were really accommodating and reassuring to us as the parents. I just hope that I don't have to do something like this again. If I can fall apart over my son getting his abscess drained, I don't know how well I would do in other life threatening situations!
