ER follow-up

Riley slept through the night without Tylenol and I had to wake him up at 9:10 am so that we could make our 9:30 am appointment with his pediatrician Dr. Bernstein. He felt very hot when I woke him and I gave him a dose of Tylenol along with his regular medicine. Once he realized that we were at a doctor's office, he became very upset and cried almost constantly. As with last night, the only time he wasn't crying was when he was nursing. Dr. Bernstein said that it is common for babies to regress when they are sick, so he's been nursing a lot.

All of the cultures have come back negative so far, his electrolytes all looked good (although he was a little low on sodium), and his hemoglobin was high. Elevated levels of hemoglobin is normal for a baby with Riley's heart defect. His body tries to compensate for the low level of oxygen in his body by making additional red blood cells.

The most frustrating part of this whole experience is that we've learned that every time Riley has a fever we will have to go through this process of blood work and x-rays. It's the only way to rule out a bacterial infection. Next time, though, I will insist that he gets a dose of versed before anyone tries to draw blood. He has very tiny veins in his arms and it is unnecessary to torture him for 15 minutes attempting to get blood, so it will be worth waiting the extra 45 minutes for it to take affect.

Riley was very angry at me today as well. I think he was protesting all of the poking and prodding over the last 30 hours, and I can't blame him. When he woke up from his 3 1/2 hour nap, he thrashed his arms and legs and kept his back to me for about five minutes. I tried to rub his back and pick him up, but it made it worse. I was going to walk away to let him work things out, but he was even more upset. So he finally let me hold him and we hugged and cried for a couple of minutes together.