On the Mend

It's been awhile since we posted but we had our hands full the past week and half with illnesses. So here's the update: Stella's high fevers lasted for about 6 days (8/15-8/20). On the 6th day, we went to see an infectious disease specialist at Georgetown university hospital on the recommendation of our pediatrician. Our pediatrician was concerned because Stella had very enlarged cervical lymph nodes (which she had prior to her fever starting) and there seemed to be no obvious cause for the fever.

To make things more confusing, Stella was on antibiotics 4 days prior to her fever starting b/c the ENT we had gone to see for her enlarged tonsils had put her on antibiotics to see if her lymph nodes would go down to confirm that they were reactive lymph nodes. Anyway, on the 6th day of her fever, Stella woke up with cold like symptoms consisting of a cough, runny nose, and congestion. Desmond also had similar cold like symptoms with a fever of 103.5 F.

The ID specialist's assessment was that Stella initially picked up a virus that caused the high fevers and then picked up a second virus resulting in the cold like symptoms that Des also seemed to get. If Stella's fevers didn't go away, we were to go see the ID specialist again on Fri.

Luckily, last Wed evening was the last time Stella had a fever and now she is getting over her cold. Des also had a mild fever for a day and a half and now he too is getting over the cold...hopefully, he won't get another ear infection.

Stella is scheduled for her tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy on Sep 11th and hopefully she will remain healthy till her surgery b/c if she has any illness, they will postpone the surgery. Since her lymph nodes didn't go down with the antibiotics, they will also perform a fine needle aspiration of the lymph nodes to look for any abnormality while she is under. Our poor Stella girl has been through a lot and we are hoping for an uncomplicated surgery and a clean bill of health.

During the past week and half, Stella continued to show her tough spirit by never complaining once and being sweet as usual and when the fevers got really high, she would just get so lethargic and lay on the couch and sometimes fall asleep. She just hated all of the different doctors poking and prodding her and who can blame her?!?! Needless to say, we are all exhausted!!!

Over the next week, we are going to try to update posts that were started and saved as drafts of events that occurred prior to our kids getting sick, so remember to scroll down and check out the posts about Stella and Des's fun times in Pittsburgh (Kennywood, family reunion, etc.) and other milestones.