"That's the Worst One I've Seen in a While..."

Those are the words my mother-in-law and I heard this morning from the pediatrician when we took Anthony in. He has yet another ear infection . This is the one he was on the Omnicef for. But the Omnicef didn't work. It totally didn't work. Dr. Patterson looked in Anthony's left ear: "All clear, a little wax." Dr. Patterson looked in Anthony's right ear. He looked and looked and looked: "That's one raging ear infection! And he has a blister on his ear drum, too. This is the worst ear infection I've seen in a while." So now Anthony's new antibiotic treatment comes in the form of injections of Rocephin (follow that link only if you want the big guns on the chemical makeup as well as the Rx description). Anthony got his first shot this morning, and will have another tomorrow and Wednesday. According to the pediatrician and the nurse that administered the shot, Rocephin burns. Well, Anthony wasn't too happy with the shots, but he didn't protest too much...that's how I know he's sick!

Another indication of his being pretty unhappy/uncomfortable/sick is his lack of energy. Even with the other two rounds of ear infections, he wasn't this clingy. He's not sleeping well at night, and when he's awake during the day he just wants to snuggle (mostly on mommy). Yesterday he took a morning nap from 10:00am to 1:15pm when Mark woke him up for lunch. He barely ate anything for lunch, took another nap later in the afternoon, ate a slice of bread for dinner and was ready for bedtime soon after that. We got up twice with him last night when he would wake up (amazingly at just the time when he needed Tylenol for his ongoing fever). We have dosed Tylenol just about every four hours since noon on Saturday as Anthony's fevers go up to 101.9 (at the highest) at the end of four hours.

The good news in the post is that Anthony's liver function tests came back today completely within the normal ranges!
AST: 17; ALT: 32; GGT: 13; Alk Phos: 193. His total bilirubin is up a bit, but not out of normal at 0.9 (normal is 0.0-1.2).

To be honest, I'm completely relieved that this is "just" an ear infection. I was really worried this morning that we could be dealing with something worse. Of course, I'm not the one experiencing high fevers, the pain of an awful ear infection and the injections of Rocephin. All I can do is snuggle (which I do well, I might add), and that's just fine with me!

Thanks for checking in on us! I'll update more after Wednesday's shot and appointment with the pediatrician.

Love, Laurie, Mark and Anthony

Coming up in Anthony-land:
Tuesday & Wednesday: Rocephin injections
Thursday: A return to Day Care?