On Saturday, September 21, you became very sick. We knew something was wrong because you are a very good baby and usually very easily soothed, but that evening you became really fussy and nothing we did made you feel better. We checked your temperature and it was high but we didn't think much of it. But as we kept checking it throughout the evening it was getting higher and higher. We decided to take you to the emergency room and that turned out to be a very good move.
I cried all the way there because you seemed so exhausted and your breathing seemed strained. By the time we got there, your temp was 103! We were so scared. They ran all kinds of tests (even a spinal tap) and discovered that you had some type of bacterial infection in your blood. By 4 a.m. we were put in a room in the pediatric unit.
We were informed that we had to stay there at least until Tuesday when the culture results came back. The next few days were very emotional for your dad and me. It was so scary not knowing what was wrong with you and of course we were worried that it could be something very serious.
They conducted an ultrasound Tuesday morning and discovered that your kidneys are two different sizes. The doctor ensured us that this was not uncommon but could be the cause of a bladder infection that could explain everything. But she also told us that since you had a bacterial infection at such a young age that we would be in the hospital for 7-10 days. We were scared that if it was a bladder infection that this would be something you would have to deal with the rest of your life. However, the results came back negative for a bladder infection, which led the doctors to think it was salmonella.
Salmonella!? How the heck could you have gotten that!? Well, it's actually very easy to contract. All it would take is for someone to touch the germ then touch your face and you ingest it through your mouth.
On Wednesday, we found out that it was definitely salmonella, which actually turned out to be good news because it is very common and very treatable and you were already reacting well to the antibiotics. Plus, the doc told us if your blood results came back well in the morning we could go home.
We did a lot of praying over those couple of days. Especially, prayers of thanks after we were informed many times by the on call doctor that if we had waited just 12 more hours you could have died. So scary! It was an emotional roller coaster, but on Thursday we were told that your blood count looked great and you looked great so they gave us the okay to go home.
And you gave us the okay too :)
Your dad was so worried about you. I don't think I have ever seen him so stressed and scared.
But you were such a trooper. You acted as though you couldn't even tell you had an IV in your arm and you were still giving us sweet smiles. We are so grateful that everything turned out okay and that you are still with us. We can't imagine our life without you. We love you, Porter!
