What a week!

To say this week was insane for our family is putting it quite mildly. This week was beyond crazy, but we've made it through and are all doing quite fine now :) Because this week has been so crazy we may not have been the greatest at notifying our friends and family of what exactly has been going on - I certainly haven't had time to blog and I've texted/emailed and facebooked things as I found minutes to do so here and there. But now that everything is almost back to normal, and I'm sitting at home alone at 11pm at night, I figured I'd take to the blog to give everyone a detailed recap of the last 4 days...wow, has it only been 4 days? Feels like 40. MONDAY Jason woke up with a REALLY bad headache. REALLY BAD. He'd had a head cold for about 2 weeks and had just recently realized that cold was going away. So when he woke up Monday in excruciating pain, he (and I) figured it was related to his cold and that it hadn't actually gone away. Logan woke up Monday with a pretty gnarley fever - 101.5+...Logan usually runs a pretty low temperature normally (As do Jason and I) so anything over 101 is pretty alarming. His mood was pretty normal for a 16 month old with a fever - not good, but other than that, all was good. TUESDAY Jason's still had his headache and it was as bad as ever.He decided to go to the Dr. that afternoon to get himself checked out. The Dr. told him that while normally, she sends any patient who describes their headache as Jason had (The worst headache he'd EVER had) straight to the ER, she decided to just prescribe him some antibiotics since he'd just gotten over a head cold and she assumed (like the rest of us) that his headache was somehow related. She told him to take sinus Tylenol along with the antibiotics and if the headache didn't let up in 48 hours, THEN he should go to the ER Logan still had a high fever today. We were watching that closely, but around 5pm both Jason and I noticed something OFF about him. He wasn't walking normally and he was refusing to run...very UNlike our little laubster. As we kept watching him we noticed that he was almost limping on his right leg...weird. I called the 24/hour nurse line for our pediatrician's office and they blew it off like it was nothing. I wasn't convinced that it was as simple as that. So as I was talking to the nurse, Jas was consulting Dr. Google. What we found online was alarming (shocker!) and we were convinced that Logan was having a REALLY bad reaction to the MMR vaccine he'd received on 10/14. When eh received this shot he'd had an immediate reaction (A reaction that the nurse had never seen before- lovely) - his leg immediately swelled up and he had to be given benadryl and a cold compress. We read that there have been cases of babies temporarily losing their ability to walk due to the vaccine - we assumed that's what Logan had. I planned on calling his dr. first thing in the morning. At about 8pm, after trying to go to bed, Jason couldn't take his headache any more. And said he wanted to go to the ER if only to get some heavy pain medication so he could go to sleep. I agreed that was the best thing to do, and we called our friend Carla to see if she could come over to watch Logan while we went to the hospital. Carla didn't hesitate to hop in her car, leave her 1 year old and her husband to come help us. She is an awesome friend who has helped us out with Logan more times than we can help. Once Carla arrived, Jas and I headed to the car and got to UCLA as soon as we could. They saw us right away and began asking Jason tons of questions. We were told that when someone comes in with a headache, it's really hard to diagnose the issue because the Dr. can't feel what the patient feel and can only go off of the patients own description of their pain to try and figure out what's going on. The Dr. decided to do a CT Scan on Jason to rule out any bleeding in the brain (NOT what you want to hear at 10pm at night...or I guess at ANY hour of the night...or day!) - thankfully that came out negative. So the next step was to do a Lumbar Puncture - a procedure in which the doctor extracts spinal fluid and has it tested for any diseases. Jason was hesitant to do this procedure because, well, it didn't sound like a whole lot of fun! I tried to assure him it wasn't as scary as it sounded and that the majority of all pregnant women have had something similar when they have an epidural and that I myself had a spinal block done the same way when I had my C-Section and that he would be fine, also ,what other option did we have? Jason agreed to do the procedure. I originally wanted to stay in the room while they did ti...but I was conveniently ushered out by the 3 member medical team that needed more room than was available with me standing in the corner. As they began doing their thing ,I realized it was best if I wasn't in the room...I was so nervous and uncomfortable I couldn't imagine seeing a needle being put in my husbands spine....the hallway became my new best friend at that moment. After the procedure was over, there was a lot of waiting. The results finally came back and it was positive for meningitis...we were shocked. What was more shocking was that the Dr. thought it was more than likely bacterial meningitis which was NOT good. Bacterial Meningitis can be very dangerous, very contagious and can have life long effects (Seizures, brain damage just to name a few...again, not what you want to hear at 10pm at night...or any hour of the night...or day!). So once they figured out what was causing Jason's pain, they doped him up (Yay morphine!) and told him he would need to stay over night. At that point, it was 2am and i Needed to get home to Logan (and to let Carla go home!). So I kissed Jason goodbye and told him I would call him in the morning. WEDNESDAY I woke up with Logan at our regular time, and when Lisette arrived I headed over to the hospital to check in on Jason. He looked like a completely different person than he had just a few hours earlier...he looked like himself! He was feeling SO much better - but we weren't totally out of the woods just yet. The Doctor's still didn't know if we were dealing with Bacterial or Viral meningitis so they were treating him as if he had Bacterial Meningitis - which meant he was getting IV Antibiotics every 4 hours, he wasn't allowed to leave his room and anyone who entered had to wear a mask and a disposable gown. He was also getting an anti-inflammatory steroid every few hours which was helping his headache tremendously. While I was visiting Jason, I got a text from Lisette who said that Logan's leg seemed to be worse. I called the Dr. right away and made an appointment. The rest of the day was spent running back home to shower, running back to the hospital to bring Jason some essentials and then running back home to get Logan to go to the Dr. Logan's appointment took a ridiculously long 2 hours. We did X-rays, had blood drawn and had Logan strut his stuff several times for the Dr so she could see his leg. Logan was an absolute champ when they were drawing his blood. I was nervous at first because the LAST time we had blood drawn, Logan was a wreck (And I wasn't doing too well myself!) - if you're wondering how they draw blood from an infant, let me tell you! It's EXACTLY like they draw blood from an adult...turnakit on arm, needle in vein...yes, small baby vein...crazy. But seriously, Logan cried a little, mainly because he was being restricted, but once they got the needle in he just kind of stared at the nurses with an inquisitive kind of look as if to say "WHAT IN THE HECK ARE YOU DOING TO ME?!" but overall he was fine! He's amazing! The x-rays didn't show any broken bones which was good, but it meant we didn't know what was going on. The Dr. was nervous about a combination of fever and bone "pain" (I'm putting that in quotes because I don't think Logan had any PAIN - if he was in pain he would cry or scream - he never did that, he just kind of walked AROUND his leg and foot that were giving him trouble) - so she said she would call me if the blood work came back alarming in any way. Luckily, I didn't hear from her. I went back to the hospital that night to bring Jas some food and to have a good old fashioned DATE NIGHT with my love. We rented a movie and had a nice time. THURSDAY (today!) I got a LOT of sleep last night...which was awesome considering I got MAYBE 2 hours of sleep the night before. I think I got a total of about 12 hours. It was awesome. Once I woke up, I called Jas and found out some GREAT news...THE MENINGITIS WAS CONFIRMED TO BE VIRAL! This means it's NOT contagious and NOT as bad as the bacterial strand! Woo Hoo! So Jason was taken off antibiotics but the Dr's still wanted to keep him 1 more night to make sure his body did alright with out the drugs. So far he's doing great, and we're keeping our figures crossed for a clean bill of health tomorrow morning! When I woke up, Lisette and Logan were out at the store...but after a little bit, Lisette called me and told me she was coming home because Logan had suddenly broken out in a rash all over his abdomen and face...awesome. Logan had woken up with a temp of 102 again, so I gave him some medicine to keep it down and was worried that his fever was NEVER going to break. He's never had one this high for this long. As soon as Logan came in the door with Lisette I could see the rash. His font, back, neck and face were covered in red bumps...despite the rash HE looked better- his eyes were brighter and he seemed like himself again. For the past few days he'd been a muted version of himself which was just weird. so seeing him LIVELY again, bumpy or not, brought a smile to my heart. Even though he had a rash, Lisette informed me that he hadn't had a fever since 6:30 that morning - that was over 7 hours before so we saw that as a good sign. I called the Dr. and told her about the rash - as soon as I Told her he had a rash but no fever she sounded relieved and said she knew exactly what was going on. Logan more than likely had something called Roseola Disease...a common viral disease that begins with a high fever that lasts for 3-5 days, then abruptly stops and immediately brings on a red rash. The Dr. said as long as his fever doesn't come back while he has the rash then we're dealing with Roseola. If his fever DOES come back then it's something else and we need to get him to a Dr. ASAP. So far, so good. It feels SO nice to check in on Logan when he's sleeping, touching his forehead and NOT being shocked by how hot it feels. As for his leg...we think it was just a coincidence that he had it at the same time as his fever. Lisette informed me that he did get his leg caught in one of the baby gates and may have twisted it a bit, so that's probably what's going on there. It seems to be improving each day at least. Here are 2 pics of Logan from tonight...Rash in plain view:

So that's our week in a (long winded) nutshell...it's been crazy, but I am so grateful to have my boys on the mend and to have a good insurance policy!! Goodnight!