Matthew's sick

I was going to write about Sam's sleeping habits yesterday evening, but unfortunately I was stuck at the ER with Matthew and couldn't post anything. So that will have to wait for another day. Anyway, yesterday Matthew was kind of irritable, ate very little and woke up from his afternoon nap with a fever and was very lethargic. Since Sam was sick over the weekend, I thought maybe he caught what Sam had, but their symptoms were different, other than the fever. Not wanting to take any chances while Jason was out of town for work I decided to take him to the doctor to get him checked out.

Our appointment was at 5:30PM and he had some blood tests and was examined but nothing was found other than elevated white blood cell levels and the symptoms I described already. Because of the WBC levels we had to then go to the ER for more tests. Ugh. Sam was at Ken and Cheri's and it ended up that he was going to spend the night there. He didn't have PJs and only a clean T-shirt as he dirtied a pair of shorts and a pair of pants (still potty training...).

So we made it to the ER a little after 7PM. Waited until a little after 8PM to be seen and then Matthew was poked and prodded by various strangers which resulted in much crying. Even when the doctors would listen to his chest with a stethoscope he would lose it. I told him it was only going to get much worse (more blood draws, urine extraction :-(, taking rectal temperature, getting an IV) but he still insisted on crying whenever someone could come into the exam room. Poor kid. Having stranger anxiety is not conducive to a visit to the doctor. Especially when you feel sick. Especially when it's well past your bedtime.

Anyway, the last test was a chest x-ray and Matthew had to be strapped to the table, all his limbs were strapped down in addition to his torso. And I had to leave the room because I'm pregnant. I wasn't thinking anything of it until the technician asked if there was a chance I was pregnant. Uh, yes, I'm completely pregnant. So I had to leave the room listening to my little Matthew being tortured by being restrained and having x-rays taken.

Various results kept on coming back as negative until finally around 11PM the doctor said the chest Xray showed that Matthew had pneumonia. Well, we had an answer and could go home with instructions for taking care of the little guy. We got home around midnight and had a restless night. Matthew was not himself much today, just wanted to be held and didn't eat much, until around 5PM when he started walking around, bouncing from toy to toy and talking and laughing. He didn't even want to go to bed at his normal time, although he clearly didn't get much sleep last night.

The only good thing out of the ordeal was that I got to hold Matthew so much. He likes to be held some these days, but it seems that is becoming less and less. He's just on the go so much when he's himself. But from when he woke up from his nap yesterday afternoon around 3, until we got home around midnight, with the exception of when I was driving and the short times when he had bursts of energy, I held Matthew. So it was probably around 6 or 7 hours yesterday afternoon/evening. The silver lining to the gray cloud of illness.