Sweet, brave, little Luke is finally home with us again!
It was a crazy past few days for all of us, starting with Luke not feeling well on Sunday morning. He seemed to just be tired, but by that evening he wouldn't eat or drink anything, had a fever, wasn't walking, and seemed to be in pain of some sort. We thought he either had a sore throat or a stomach bug and brought him to bed with us to keep an eye on him.
We spent the night awake most of the time and his fever seemed to be getting worse rather than better. We knew something wasn't quite right, but couldn't figure out what it was. I decided I would take him to his doctor first thing in the morning.
He woke up about 7 am and I changed his diaper like I usually do. As I was changing it I noticed a large red area where his right leg and abdomen meet, and immediately knew something was very wrong. I first thought it was a ruptured appendix, but I called his doctor and she mentioned that it sounded like an abscess or infection. She gave us the choice of heading to the ER or coming in to her office and we quickly decided on the ER. Our boy was just not acting right and I had a feeling we would be there eventually anyways, so off we went.
I'm so glad we made that choice! We seemed to be the first to arrive and had the ER waiting room to ourselves, which, we all know, is nothing short of a miracle! We were quickly in an ER room and soon whisked off to an ultrasound and blood work. The doctor immediately knew we were dealing with cellulitis, or a skin infection caused by staph bacteria. We had to make sure it had not spread to his joint, or worse, his blood, and were admitted immediately to be started on IV antibiotics.
Finally, after about 2 and a half days, Luke was starting to be back to his old self.
Now that he's home, he's the happiest I've ever seen him. i can see the contentment in his face when he's snuggling on the couch with his daddy, or even falling asleep in his own bed, which he was never incredibly enthused about!
As for his infection, we've heard from every doctor and nurse that it's an extremely common thing, especially with babies in diapers. The staph bug loves a dark moist place, and diapers are just the spot for them to get comfy. When we asked what we could do to prevent it, we were told that it's basically "the luck of the draw" on who gets it and that staph lives on our skin every day.
Right now we're just taking it one day at a time and being incredibly thankful that Luke is getting better and is at home with us!
Thanks for all your prayers and keep them coming!
