At 3:00, I called the doctor's office to see what Alex's test results concluded, if anything.  The nurse pulled the records and then questioned, "The doctor hasn't called you yet?"  "No," I replied.  "Your son has an elevated white blood cell count.  The doctor's with a patient, but I'll have him call you back as soon as I can."

You can all guess the first thing I did when I hung up because I'm pretty sure it would be the first thing you would do: I made the mistake of googling "high white blood cell count," which naturally led me right to the "c" word in less than five seconds.  Good times, let me tell you, waiting for that doctor to call me back!

By the time I heard from the nurse, I was a total mess.  Alex's fever seemed to be getting higher again, in spite of it being too soon for another Tylenol dose yet and I was freaking out.  My mind would not let go of the idea that it was Really Really bad.  (Leukemia!?)  It didn't help AT ALL that when the nurse finally called me back she told me to take him to the ER because they couldn't tell from the tests what was causing the anomalous blood count.  He had no outward signs of infection and yet his WBC was 21,000 (a normal white blood cell count is 4500-10000).  I started to cry when I asked her how to get to the closest ER and I didn't stop until we got there half an hour later.

I did breathe a minor sigh of relief that the hospital was nice and had better-than-expected arrangements for children.  Of course it took well over an hour before we met the doctor who then seriously questioned why we were even there in the first place.  She obviously thought that our doctor had over-reacted and that Alex probably had a virus after all.

She did order another blood test, this time a blood culture, and she wanted to see the chest x-ray he'd had done earlier this afternoon.  She called Alex's doctor and confirmed at least some of the reasons he'd been suspicious.  This meant Alex had to have yet another painful blood draw, which he suffered through like a champ.  He had to pee in a cup and then Dave ended up running back to our doctor's office to pick up a copy of the x-rays, just to avoid our boy getting any unnecessary radiation.  On the way back, he brought us some long-over due hamburgers, which we all (with the exception of Genoa) greedily munched down.

Fast forward another hour and the doctor says she definitely sees something on the xrays: pneumonia.  It's just a slight case, but even though his blood oxygen levels are normal, it's most likely the cause of the high blood cell count.  She orders a shot of antibiotics and tells us to follow up with his regular doctor in two days.  Pneumonia?!  I spent the over two of the longest hours of my life worrying about cancer that turned out to be pneumonia!

Five days of antibiotics and he should be right as rain.  It all makes sense in hindsight.  The poor kid had quite a day though - TWO blood draws and a giant painful shot in the ass.  He was still limping when I got him home to bed. 

Genoa seems to have recovered as well.  She hasn't vomited since about 3:00 this afternoon and she's nursed in tiny little doses and has been able to keep it all down.  She even started to act normal (screaming!) again this evening when I was trying to comfort Alex, so that's a good sign.

Sadly, the story doesn't end here.  We got Alex home from the hospital, tucked him in bed and told him how much better he'd feel tomorrow when that shot in his butt got the chance to start working.

He woke up less than an hour later drenched in barf.  Hamburger barf.

We should've seen that one coming.  Apparently it's not possible for only ONE of our children to get the barfs, oh no.  They both have to get it!  We feel awful for him.  Here he's had the most difficult day of his entire life, health-wise, and he gets to top it off with the stomach flu and another whole 24 hours of feeling like crap on toast. 

Please tell me this is the end of it.  I'm not sure I can take much more!

Comments

[Melanie]

Poor Alex! Poor you! What a horrible day :( I hope he starts to feel a whole lot better soon, and you can all get back to normal in time for Christmas.

[Ceece]

oh gosh. Poor Alex, poor you!

I hate those days filled with barf.

Hope everyone gets better soon!

[sherry]

What a horrible day! I hope everyone starts to feel better soon and you get to put your feet up and relax after all the stress!

[Must be Motherhood]

Oh God, there's nothing more disgusting than red meat barf! How awful for Alex!
I'm very glad the big scare turned out to be something manageable, and am sorry about all of the medical hoops required to get a diagnosis. Hang in there.

[Carrie]

Hugs! I hope today is a much better day for everybody and that there is NO BARFING!!

[Mandee]

As we say here in the south, bless your heart. Glad to hear that it is "just" pneumonia and hope that everyone feels a lot better very quickly.

[Jacqueline D]

Amanda and David, I had to log on this morning first thing and find your blog in order to hopefully hear what's going on with Alex. I'm so sorry he's so sick! I'm glad it's "ONLY" (ha ha) pneumonia and not something worse. Hopefully he'll feel better within the next day or two. Jacqueline

[Jamie]

Oh my God, I was holding my breath for half this post until I got to the word pneumonia! I feel so awful for the little guy! Being so sick is hard on us adults, I can only imagine how he must be feeling at 4! I so hope you all get better soon!

[kalisah]

when I used to work for a children's cancer hospital, we had a name for that: St. Jude Syndrome. When you're around it all the time and hearing those I-just-went-in-for-her-1-year-check-up-and-came-out-with-a-diagnosis-of-cancer stories, you start to believe every little sniffle is a SIGN! OF! CANCER! So I can totally relate to your panic.

Sorry for your troubles but glad at least that your fears were alleviated. Hope is suffering is soon as well.
xoxo

[Rachel]

I'm right there with Kalisah and it is actually the reason I suggested you had a blood test and gasped when I was reading and saw that "high white blood cell" result. But I think it's so hard to forget, for those of us who've worked with it that a high number is also a sign of infection somewhere in the body (pneumonia for example!).

So thankful that you have an answer and it's an answer that can be cured with a couple doses of antibiotics even if the shots and tests were painful.
Alex is a real champ and I'll still be thanking of and praying for you guys.

Hope all the pukies go away REALLY soon!!!

[Rachel]

-- hmm... that last post should read "so hard to remember"

It's hard to remember that high blood count = infection the vast majority of the time.

Hoping to hear that everyone is well by the end of the day!

[Sara]

I almost started to cry when I read "high white blood cell count"...but I'm so glad that at least now you know what's causing the fever. Hopefully his barfs will only last a short time!

[Kristine]

Is that normal operating procedure? Cause when we were transferred to another hospital with our child with pneumonia, they said "Oh, small hospitals just over react to the little ones...it's just a virus." Nevermind the X-rays, or that his WBC was 29,000. Anyway, ours took another couple days to iron out - getting antibiotics from teh doctor from the first hospital and second opinions from 4 other doctors, but the antibiotics totally cured it. Glad to hear Alex will be fine.

[Susan]

Sounds like it was one of the worst days of all of your lives! The only thing worse than watching your child have blood drawn is watching your child have blood drawn AGAIN! Hope everyone is feeling better quickly.

[kheatherg]

They had to put 4boy on a heart monitor once and i was like jelly on the floor. I think it was one of the hardest days of MY life!

I hope ya'll get better! Nothin' worse than the pukes PLUS pnuemonia.

[glamgranola]

Totally crossing my fingers that you don't get the barfs too! Moms can't get sick, they just can't!

[Lia]

I teared up in the beginning. I am hoping you are all on the way back to good health!

[Sonja]

Aw, crap!
The only silver lining I can see is that had you not worried about Leukemia, Pneumonia would have seemed like a really horrible, terrible thing to happen.
(I know. Not a great silver lining... but better than nothing!) Hang in there!

[Rachel]

Kristine, if you're refering to the "overreacting" comments that always seem to fly during these situations -- yes, it often does seem to be standard policy and in my opinion it's ridiculous!!

For those of us like myself and Kalisah who've worked with children and seen children with cancer sometimes I wonder if those hospitals and doctors knew just how many more serious diagnosis came from "overreacting" parents, doctors, and "smaller hospitals" they would shut their mouths already. It's not helpful.

I honestly don't think there are too many parents who overreact when their children are really sick and it's a shame when doctors act like they do. Just think if Amanda hadn't taken Alex back and they hadn't found the little bit of pnemonia because the doctor wanted further testing, it could have gotten far worse.

[vetmommy]

Oh man, there is some super-bad JuJu going on at your house!!! I really feel for you guys, and hope it all passes uneventfully and SOON!

[Dana]

I hope both kids start to feeling better soon! Poor little cuties.