Well, that was fun... (NOT!)

Its rather amazing to me how either 1) things change over time or 2) the old addage of "location, location, location" is relevant for more than business and real-estate.

Last Thursday, Christopher had a really bad case of the sniffles, complete with goopy eyes and snorting while he breathed. I figured it was a cold, called the dr to see what else I could do besides steam and elevating his head. The nurse I spoke with thought that, rather than a cold, this was most likely "newborn congestion" and suggested saline drops for his nose and one of those sucky-things to help get rid of the mucus. (lovely) He started to seem better by Friday afternoon. Monday, he was a bit cranky, but not too bad. Well, by Monday night, we were in full blown crank-fest. He would not eat, and I could not really wake him to feed him. He would, however, cry and scream in his sleep.

After a very sleepless night on Monday, Leslie arrived Tuesday morning. Chris was in full cranky-ville. I took the boys to school, and by the time I returned, he'd spiked a fever of 102. A call to the doctor put just a slight bit of panic into me (How fast can you get here?) and once we arrived, the overall concencus was that we needed to go to the hospital! Pardon me... he's got a fever! Well, they wanted to cover all bases, and worst case scenario, rule out spinal bacterial menengitis.

That freaked me out more than just a bit...

So we go to the hospital. Very nice folks there, by the way, and more than redeemed the hospital in my mind after my not so great experience in L&D just 3 weeks earlier. The oncall doc started to go over all the tests they wanted to do to my little baby... including a spinal tap!! Yikes!!

The treatment - at least 48 hours in IV antibiotics. Translation - we would be admitted to the hospital until at least Thursday. As is turns out, we were there until Friday. The nurses warned me, thank goodness, that they may have to use the veins in his scalp for the IV, and they did... Not an image I care to see again!

At the end, though, he turned out to have an ear infection, most likely from the cold I thought he had last week and while it took about 3 days to get his fever under control, we are now home and hope to never repeat that experience.

I had only a small glimpse of what parents with children who have chronic or even serious illness go through. My heartfelt prayers go out to them - I don't know how they do it.

So, what does location have to do with it? Well, we did the same thing with Matthew - 3 weeks old, spikes a fever to 103, and we run to the ER at 3am. Except they give us Tylenol and send us home. No fear of bacterial infections. No spinal taps. No hospital stays... Makes me wonder if standards of care have changed, or if it is just Arizona? (or, maybe, just Scottsdale with its plethora of attorneys!)