You can notice the swelling on the left side (our right) of his face.
Poor baby has been stuck 5 times (2 shots, 2 blood draws, and 1 IV) since yesterday.
He's not too happy about it all. :(
I'm writing this to ask for your prayers for our sweet Walker. Last night as I was getting ready to go to work and as Tyson was feeding the boys supper, I looked at Walker in his highchair and noticed that the left side of his face was pretty swollen. We immediately scooped him up and headed for the ER.
Once we got to the ER, we were taken back immediately. All of his vitals (temp, heart rate, blood pressure, respiratory rate, and oxygen saturation) were all ok, so I felt a little better. The doctors weren't sure what was causing the swelling, though, so they sent us for a CT scan. The CT didn't show any signs of infection, just inflammation. The ER doctor felt pretty sure it was parotitis, which is inflammation of the parotid (the salivary gland). He said it was probably viral and would go away on its own, but he wanted us to go to our pediatrician to have it double checked today.
So first thing this morning, I took Walker to the pediatrician. We saw one of the older pediatricians in the practice who is very well respected in the community but isn't one of my favorites because he's too laid back and isn't very aggressive. Well, he took one look at Walker and immediately got really concerned. He didn't agree with the ER doctor's diagnosis; he took a ton of blood work (some of which we won't have the results back for a few days), including a CBC. Walker's white blood cell count was pretty high at 20,000, which made him more concerned.
Long story short, we don't know what's going on with Walker. It still could be something viral, but the pediatrician has also thrown out words such as lymphadenitis, mumps, and abscess. He gave Walker a big shot of rocephin in hopes of knocking out any bacteria. We're supposed to watch it today and I'm supposed to call back in the morning so we can decide what to do next.
Since we've been home, his face has gotten more red, tender, and warm. It's not looking good. We'll keep you posted, just please pray for my baby boy. I try not freak out very much, but I am freaking out now.
3 comments:
oh, bless his heart. We will def be praying for that sweet baby!
Bless his heart...and yours. Worth had something like this when he was about four. Of course, Emmett was at football camp, and of course, it was late at night. I loaded him and Kate up and headed to the ER. It ended up being not mumps but something similar and also viral. Hope it resolves soon.
Prayers beth! I know it can be so scary to not know- I'll be praying- I got the mumps in Africa a few years back and my face looked like this, except on both sides- the difference was the back of my throat was also raw-I hope they get answers soon!!
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