When Graham was about 2 1/2 weeks old, we had a pretty scary event. Matt was out of town for the first time since Graham had been born and I'd taken the kids to Miles' soccer practice. Graham was sleeping so well, I went ahead and fed the kids dinner when we got home, even though he should have been pretty hungry by that point. Finally, after dinner, I got Graham out of his seat and noticed that he felt warm. When I tried to wake him up to feed him, he was very lethargic and not interested in eating. I started to worry.
I started to get the other kids ready for bed and took all of Graham's clothes off to try to wake him up, but he still wasn't really doing much. I took his temperature rectally and it was 104.7. I quickly paged our pediatrician and called Matt's parents to see if they could stay with the other kids, anticipating that I'd be going to urgent care. I got pretty emotional when the MD told me to take him straight to the ER.
Thankfully, Matt's dad went with me to the ER. (While our local pediatric ER is great, I wasn't anticipating being there again so soon after Brooke's appendicitis.) They took Graham's vitals and the doctor came in to talk to us. He asked how much the pediatrician had told me about bringing an infant into the ER and when I said not much, he went on to explain that when babies that little run high fevers, they have to do a battery of tests, including urinalysis, blood draw and spinal tap. I lost it when he said "spinal tap." My poor little baby! Then he went on to say that they have to test the cultures for 48 hours, which meant that we'd be in the hospital for at least 2 nights. While all this was going on, Matt was trying to find a flight back, but it was too late so he had to fly back the next morning. Thankfully, they had us leave the room for the spinal tap. Sadly, I was around while they tried to get a line in him for blood draw and the IV. I think it took 5 tries and about 6 hours before they finally got it in in tiny little vein.
The first night was pretty horrible. The next day, the doctor came in and was asking lots of questions. When I told her that Brooke had been home from school earlier that week due to a headache and fever, she seemed relieved. She said that they were going to continue to treat Graham for a litany of things and that he was "guilty until proven innocent", but her hope was that he just had the virus that Brooke had and it was obviously harder for his body to fight it. She also explained that we'd still have to wait for the culture results and would slowly be ruling things out. In the meantime, we got to know the nursing staff there quite well and they were all so nice and reassuring. I'd stay overnight due to the breastfeeding, but Matt and I took turns staying with him during the day (decent timing as this happened on a Thursday night).
Long story long, Graham ended up having viral meningitis, which is scarier than it sounds (bacterial is the "bad" one with lasting implications). Basically, the virus had just gotten into the fluid around his spinal cord and brain, but his body was able to fight it off. We so incredibly thankful for the excellent care that we received and for God's healing on our little man. It was such a relief when they started taking some of the cords away and he started perking up!
In the elevator on the way home, none the wiser. Thank you, Jesus!
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