Trip to the ER

Riley was a bit sluggish today and was not interested in eating much. I took his temperature around 6 pm and he had a fever of 103.8 degrees.

This is a worrisome temperature for any child, but Riley is more susceptible to infections (due to the asplenia), so this was extremely troubling. The advice nurse said we should take Riley into the ER. We gave him 1.2 mls. of infant Tylenol just before heading out. Ken was on his way home from work and he met us at Kaiser in Redwood City.

His temp was 103.2 when they took his temperature in the ER and his oxygen saturation was hovering in the high 70s. He was very distressed at being in the hospital (he seems to be remembering that it's never a pleasant experience). The only thing that kept him calm was nursing, so we did that a lot. And he vomited up quite a bit of milk. It was very red and one of the ER staffers checked to make sure that it was not blood in his vomit and fortunately it was not. We were told that it's not unusual for a high fever to cause vomiting. He was then given a dose of Tylenol suppositories, so that he couldn't throw it up. The ER doctor called for several blood tests... one was a culture that checked for bacteria in his bloodstream, another tested his white blood cell count, which could help determine if there was indeed an infection.

Historically, Riley has had a very difficult time presenting a vein that is capable of producing enough blood for any kind of test. Fifteen minutes later of poking and repoking and poking some more, there was almost enough blood. Grampy and Daddy tried to comfort Riley during this process while I took a break in the waiting room. Then they needed to do a finger stick to get more blood for some additional tests since the draw didn't produce enough.

The pediatrician on call, Dr. Jason Clarke, came in to see Riley and paged Dr. Tarnoff, Riley's cardiologist. Dr. Clarke also checked Riley's ears and throat and did a throat culture to rule out strep throat. He said that there is a summer virus going around and that is likely what Riley has. He said the temperature will likely last four or five days.

Riley has a follow-up appointment with Dr. Bernstein Thursday at 9:30 am.

We are finally home and Riley is asleep. That's where I'm heading now.