Home, Drugs in Hand

We are home, Landon is acting much more like a Landon, and JP and I are like the walking dead. We decided to go to Northwestern Children's Memorial hospital. It's closer to us and doesn't have the memories or medical files of the Univ. of Chicago Children's. While I'm pretty sure that not even Dr. K could try to link Landon's fever and lethargy to child abuse, there was no way we were taking that chance - and we just couldn't handle knowing that any ER doctor viewing Landon's medical file would see all the notes and red flags from his last stay. I feel like it would change the way they looked at us and I didn't want to deal with that.

When we walked into the ER Landon was on fire and so listless it was really starting to scare me. I tried to sit him up in my lap to unzip his outfit and he kept crumpling over. He hadn't drank more than a few ounces since 5 PM Saturday night and his breathing has very rapid and shallow. We were given Tylenol and Pedialyte and sent back to urgent care- where we waited almost three hours to be seen by the doctor. A few minutes before she came in we were ready to leave - Landon had cooled down and perked up, he was drinking well, and making nice wet diapers. Luckly she came in pretty soon after that, looked in Landon's ears, and started pulling lots of gunk out of the left one. Apparently it was solidified pus which had hardened in the ear canal and exerted extra pressure on his painful, bright red, raging ear infection. No wonder he cried for 13 hours. She said there was so much stuff in the ear she couldn't even see the infection until she spent 5 minutes digging it out. He's now on a new, stronger antibiotic and receiving alternating doses of Tylenol and Motrin. His temperature is normal, he's drinking much better, and he even flirted with a woman at Chipotle when JP and I grabbed lunch at 4:30. Those coy smiles were a relief to see.

Thank you all very much for your concern and well wishes. After trying to piece together the events of last night with JP it appears that I got about 75 minutes of sleep, so that's 15 more than I thought! Of course no studying took place today, but JP is taking off work to stay home with Landon tomorrow so that I can go to school. I have a reaction paper due Tuesday on a gigantic scholarly article I haven't even downloaded yet. But it'll get done and most important is the fact that Landon just saw his cat and got a giant smile on his face as he lunged out to grab as much of her fur as possible. That's our boy.