Tayo's Hospitalization

Lets start from the beginning...

Tayo was born a calm, happy baby. We thought we were in heaven for the first few weeks. But then fussiness kicked in due to some major spitting up. No fear, we knew what it was thanks to our previous kid. Tayo had acid reflux. The medication he was put on made him a calm happy baby again... but only for a couple of days. Now what?

Sunday, April 3--Bob was changing Tayo's diaper (which Tayo hates and screams over). He noticed a bit of diaper rash so he put some cream on it, at which point Bob felt a small lump on the left of Tayo's bum hole (anus). This was why Tayo hated his diaper changed.

Monday, April 4--Worried, I took Tayo in to the doctor. The pediatrician took a look at it and said it was most likely just tissue that was being strained from all his fussing and crying over his acid reflux so he prescribed Previcid to control the reflux better. (We later learned that the doctor was looking at a different bump on Tayo's bum, one that above his anus not the left.)

Tuesday, April 5--Tayo was still a fussy baby. After a long night, Bob decided he was too tired to go into work so he took the day off. That was true inspiration because I would not have been able to handle the events that were to unfold that day alone.

Around 1:00pm I decided to lay down to take a nap. Bob woke me up in a panic around 2:30. Tayo's bump had gotten bigger, was really protruding, and was bleeding. We took him in to the local hospital not wanting to make the drive to the pediatrician's. The doctor took a look at it and said it was an infected cyst. He called the local surgeon to come in and cut it open to drain the fluid out of it. We contacted our pediatrician to see if that was the best solution, got his go for it, and he suggested we take cultures of the bacteria. The surgeon didn't think cultures were necessary, but did it upon our request. (I am so thankful we did.) The surgeon said a marble sized amount of fluid came out and that it should now heal and be fine as long as we kept it clean. Poor Tayo now had an open wound right next to his anus. How were we supposed to keep that clean since there was no way to bandage it?! But we tried; lots of diaper changes, a hose down every time he pooped, and gauze next to the wound (which only seemed to collect poop).

Also to make things worse, Hannalee had a fever of 102!

I know she's not feeling good when she holds still for more than two minutes.
Poor girl.

Thursday, April 7--In the afternoon I layed Hannie down for a nap then changed Tayo's diaper. His cut was discolored and had an infected red spot above it. It was also starting to get a hard lump again. In a panic I called the surgeon to see what kind of a bug (infection) we were dealing with. They said the culture came back as staff. Panicked, I called my pediatrician, but he was off. Having his cell phone number (he's in my mom's ward) I called him while he was out running. He was fine with that after learning about the culture results. He told me to take Tayo to his office where his PA would look at the wound, consult with him, and then decide what actions to take.

In a hysterical mess I called my step-mom, Robin, who quickly picked up Bob from work, dropped him off at the pediatrician's office to meet me, and came up and stayed with Hannalee. I also called my friend Glenda to watch Hannie until Robin arrived. At the pediatrician's office it was decided that taken account of how young Tayo is and how dangerous staff can be on a little one we needed to head to the hospital's pediatric department.

We were met at the pediatric wing by some wonderful nurses. They quickly put an IV into Tayo's hand (he didn't even cry at this point because he was so worn out from a hard day already). Through the IV they started some antibiotics. Then the wound care department came and cleaned his wound and taught us how to put a cream barrier over the cut to keep out more bacteria. Our pediatrician came in that night and it was decided that Tayo needed to stay hospitalized until we knew exactly what type of infection we were dealing with when his blood tests came back.

The bandage from his IV.

It was a rough night of very little sleep. Tayo didn't like the bed and groaned all night long. Plus he kept getting woke up by the nurses that had to do his vital signs.

Friday, April 8--The next morning he got looked over again by our pediatrician and the on-call doctor. At this point the antibiotics were giving Tayo diarrhea. As the doctors were trying to inspect the wound he kept pooping and pooping. Three diapers later and a lot of wipes they got it accomplished. The nurse walked in and said, "How many doctors does it take to change a diaper?"

They decided the earliest they would release Tayo was that evening so that he could get one more dose of antibiotics through the IV. It was a long day but Tayo was a trooper and so was my wonderfully sportive husband. That night the doctor said he was 90% confident in letting Tayo go home. We decided we had had enough of the hospital and headed to my mom's (to be close to the hospital just in case).

Currently--Tayo is doing so much better. His wound looks great and is almost healed. Most of the time he is a very happy baby. I think the antibiotics that he is on make his tummy hurt, but other than that he is a sweet little guy.
Hannalee's fever turned in to a nasty cough, but she is happy and energetic. The only thing getting her down is that she is not allowed to touch Tayo. Every morning she wakes up and says, "Hannie feeling better. Touch Tayo now?"
I unfortunately go the stomach flu and was very achy yesterday. I'm feeling better now and am hoping that the saying: "bad things come it threes" is accurate so that we can be done being sick.