Caden was hospitalized with pneumonia a few days ago. He has been inpatient at MUSC for four days now. He has shown signs of improvement, but there have been some ups and downs in the past two days. The up side is that we have not seen a fever reach 105 in almost three days since starting the IV antibiotics. In general Caden woke up acting like he felt better today and even said so a few times. He even came off oxygen for a couple of hours today. Then Caden ended the afternoon having a 103.7 degree fever.
The doctors did change antibiotics earlier today. The more we thought about it the less sense it made. This morning I asked if the cultures ever showed signs of responding to any antibiotics they tested against it. They said no. I asked if they tested this new antibiotic, basically an IV form of amoxicillin, and they said no. They said this type pneumonia “always” responds to Amoxicillin. I’m okay with that if it is “always” true except for the fact that we seemed to have made ground with the antibiotics we were already on. I plan to dig a little deeper in trying to understand their logic tomorrow morning when they make rounds.
An odd response by the doctors today was that they questioned whether Caden actually had a fever last night at 2am. I can assure you that he did. The nurse never came and verified the fever and as a result did not record it on Caden’s chart. She only recorded that she gave him Tylenol. It appears that if it is not in writing then it did not happen. The over night fever got to 102.5 and it took a couple of hours to get Caden back to sleep after that one. Then today Caden had a 103.7 by our thermometer while Sherry was here and was recored by the nurse at 103.  Maybe they will believe it this time. Their tone and actions seem to be questioning our desire to stay in the hospital…like maybe we are making up fevers or something. They have ordered the nurses and techs to take a temp with their thermometer to verify the fever. This is the same thermometer that measured a 1.8F degree difference right in front of Sherry, the nurse and me this evening. No one will listen when we tell them that Caden does not regulate his temperature very well and you need to look at him and take temps in a few different places when you think he has a fever. It’s like they think we like being here and are trying to find ways to stay. They have obviously not been paying attention, because we stayed home for two days with Caden having a fever of 104-105 around the clock hoping for the Rocephin injections to work. Caden even had 105 fever pop up while at the pediatrician’s office on Friday and he was so wiped out by it that they nurse had to get a wheelchair to help me get Caden to the car. The pediatrician was ready to sign off on admitting him then, but we convinced her to give the Rocephin one more day. The doctors only know what they see and this morning they saw Caden sitting up and feeling good and missed him crashing and falling asleep for two hours during the 103.7 fever later in the day.
I did not mention this in previous posts, but we are dealing with the same attending doctor that created all the drama back in February of 2011. He is the one who was suggested on 2011 that Caden be admitted to the ICU and then 12 hours later recommended discharge. I guess I was hoping he would operate with a little more common sense and trust in our judgement this time, but it looks like that may not be the case after all.
Our desire is to get Caden well enough that he does not end up back in here within a few days or a week due to a relapse. Being out of the hospital for his birthday on Friday would be a bonus, but is not a primary concern. We have spent plenty of family birthdays and holidays in the hospital before so it is not the end of the world if we have to do it again. We also hope he will be well enough to get back surgery in on the 14th.