Then...
Thompson got sick! Let me tell you the story...
Monday night (1-31-11), Robert came home from work and I had ran to get us some dinner. About 10 minutes later he calls me and said that Thompson was hurt and I needed to come home quick. I race back to the house to find Thompson sitting on the couch with his chin down neck cocked to the left. He had a huge knot on the side of his neck. Robert said that he was picking him up and the next thing he knew Thompson was whimpering saying his neck hurt. We were sure that he had gotten hurt somehow. So we rush to the ER and they proceed to check us in. We find out Thompson is running about a 102.5 fever. They then do some x-rays and a CT scan. Everything showed that nothing was broken or fractured. They gave him some Motrin and we were back home at 2am Tuesday morning.
The next day (Tuesday), Thompson woke up, still not able to move his neck and still running a fever, and came and layed on the couch. I made him some waffles and chocolate milk and noticed he couldn't eat. I let him lay there all morning and carried him to the bathroom. (I didn't want to hurt his neck worse, thinking he had a neck injury) I gave him some more medicine and watched him gag the whole time trying to get it down. It sounded like he was about to start vomiting any second. I promised him a popsicle if he took his medicine and the poor boy couldn't eat it. He said it hurt him to. :( So then I started noticing his hands shaking every time he went to take a bite. Then I noticed he couldn't swallow and he was drooling everywhere. I freaked out! I called my mom and gave her the rundown and we both decided to call the paramedics. I called Robert at work to let him know what was going on and he too thought we needed to call them. All I could think is that there was some neurological problem and we needed someone to see him now. The paramedics came and next thing I know 15 people were crowded in the living room all making sure my baby boy was ok. They told us that his vitals were fine and we could either transport him to the hospital or they could. After calming down a bit, I decided that we could just take him in. So we loaded him up and took him. We got there and explained our story 20 more times and they kept getting so puzzled. They didn't know why his neck was still stuck that way. They didn't know why he was running a fever. They didn't know what the lump on his neck was. So many questions, very few answers. They did some blood work and a ultrasound on his neck. The blood levels came back highly elevated for some sort of infection and his white blood count level was very high. The ultrasound showed that his lymph nodes were huge. They did some more x-rays. By this time they said that they didn't feel comfortable letting us go home til they could give us some answers. We tried to get into the Naval Hospital in San Diego but they were full. So we had to stay at Pendleton til they could transfer us to the Rady's Children's Hospital the next day.
Wednesday morning came and Thompson and I were up getting ready to leave for Rady's. They had to call a critical care team to transfer him because at this time he was still being treated as a trauma patient because of the neck injury. They had to get his IV in him before being transferred. Let me tell you... I HATE what they did to him. Hate it. He was dehydrated and the nurses tried 4 times to get his IV in. No luck. They said they couldn't try anymore and they would have to call the anaesthesiologist to try to get it in. He and and another doctor came in and they tried 4 times. I cried. He CRIED. It was horrible. I was on the verge of yelling at them so bad, but had to remind myself that they were trying to help him. It's just the worst feeling watching your child in pain. They finally got the IV in his foot. The transfer team was there and we were loaded up in the ambulance ready to go. We get to Rady's and the doctors start talking to us about Thompson. One doctor (our hero!) looks at his x-rays, looks at Thompson, then tells us that he does not have a neck injury at all. He apparently has retro pharyngeal abscess in his neck. Basically, it is an infection started from an infection, that settles in his neck and creates pus pockets (his lump) that grow and eventually cuts off the airway. There is so much swelling of the glands and this is why his neck was swollen and he couldn't move. This also explains all of the blood work results and fever issue. Apparently Pendleton was never looking for an infection, all they were worried about was trauma. The infection was right there on the x-rays and that is how the doctor found it.
We were so glad the doctor realized exactly what it was! I will be back later for part 2 of the story...
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