The weekend before Christmas, we headed to Lebanon for the weekend. We love celebrating with the Shoemakers!
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| A little pre-festivity nape and cuddle time. |
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| Not bad for 29 people and a timer function! |
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| After return home, our neighborhood Santa made the rounds. Noah wouldn't go near him without me (and his pirate sword) and Lyla was clearly not thrilled either. |
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| Practice Christmas photo. Yes, in Halloween pjs. |
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| Grandma Sampson started sending presents by mail so we wouldn't have so much to try to pack into the van when we left Pennsylvania. |
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| Noah was excited about his glowing marker craft toy! |
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| Lyla loves her new chair! |
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| Christmas Eve pictures. Noah wasn't in the mood to take pictures at home. |
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| We got some pictures of him at church, though! |
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| So cute! |
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| After supper, we opened our Christmas Eve present. |
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PJs, popcorn, and a movie! We loved snuggling up with our special snack and watching the Polar Express.
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When we put Noah to bed that night, we noticed some swelling on the left side of his face. We immediately gave him some Benedryl and Ibuprofen and he went on to bed. We called the nurse-on-call through the pediatrician's office and the service said a nurse would call back but they were experiencing high call volumes. We kept checking him and I left soon after to go help in the church nursery at the 10pm Christmas Eve service. Daniel texted me soon after to tell me he thought the swelling was worse and I needed to come home. Honestly, I thought he was probably nervous and didn't think too much of it. We only had one baby in the nursery so it wasn't a problem to come home. Daniel met me in the driveway with Noah in his arms. As soon as I saw him, I knew we needed to get to the ER. I immediately headed for the smaller hospital close to our home because we didn't know if the swelling was going to soon affect his airway. The nurse-on-call finally called as I was pulling into the ER so that wasn't much help! :) We walked into the ER and were seen almost immediately (I'm guessing they were initially as alarmed by the swelling as I was.)
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| Potty break in the ER around 11 pm Christmas Eve. |
The physician there told us Noah would likely need imaging done and needed pediatric specialists as she didn't know what it was. She sent us to Children's Hospital, allowing me to take him and not by ambulance as long as we went straight there. We were seen fairly quickly in that ER as well, and soon Noah was getting an IV for multiple blood draws, contrast for a CT scan, and soon after that, antibiotics. We were admitted as soon as he finished his CT scan (so proud of that little guy for doing it without sedation!) This was also about the time he spiked a fever that was persistent through the next 24 hours despite medications.
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| Admitted around 4:30 am Christmas morning |
Noah finally got to get a couple hours of rest around 5:00 am before more doctors came to see him at 8. Several theories were tossed around and they sent multiple respiratory panels and bloodwork tests. He was found to have rhinovirus and adenovirus, both strains of viruses that present similar to a cold. Noah had had a fever over the previous weekend, but it had gone away and he had been left with a slight cough. Other than that, all of his tests came back normal aside from an elevated white blood count, which can happen with an infection. He was worked up for mumps, a clogged salivary gland, and an allergic reaction, but all ruled out. He was on IV antibiotics, steriods, allergy medicine, and an H2 blocker. Late Christmas night and into the next morning was the scariest as his oxygen level kept dropping while he was sleeping. ENT was consulted and wanted to do a scope but he wouldn't cooperate (can you blame him? It was 4 in the morning when they tried, and he's only 3!) Fortunately we were able to improve his oxygen levels with positioning changes and didn't have to be more aggressive.
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| At it's worst, 7 am the day after Christmas. The poor little guy was so swollen that you couldn't even see his eyelashes. |
The swelling finally started going down around 9am the day after Christmas. It took a couple of days for him to return to "normal" but we are so glad he did! The doctors don't know which medicine worked or what caused it. The best guess is that his body was reacting to the viruses. Noah thinks he had popcorn stuck in his cheek, despite our attempts at explaining. We're so thankful for our boy and the good medical care! It wasn't the Christmas we imagined, for sure! We had brought some of Noah's presents to the hospital but he, of course, wasn't feeling that great, so he didn't show much excitement. And we didn't take any pictures of it.
We were supposed to head to Pennsylvania on Friday, but didn't get discharged until Saturday. The attending physician gave us permission to head on, so we left Sunday. But not before he got to finish opening his presents, including a huge walk-in play kitchen! (I took a video of him pulling the blanket off when he got home, but of course the battery died and it got cut off a little.
Click here for the video if you want, anyway! Ugh!)
Stay tuned for the Pennsylvania update. :)
Merry Christmas!
We enjoyed a trip to CandyCane Lane at Hershey Park with Grandma, Grandpa, Dave, Mandie, Grace, Lincoln, and Mandie's parents. It was really cold, but we had a blast!
