Fever and a Trip to Duke

Unfortunately we had another adventure with the medical community this week.  Eli had a fever and we ended up at Duke Hospital.  

Eli patiently waiting it out!  The IV is in his right hand and the two other cords are for blood pressure.  You cannot see the monitor wrapped around his foot and they had taken off the 3 lead ECG.

Sunday night Eli did not seem to sleep well, he grunted most of the night, Andrea only got a few hours of sleep and I think I got four hours.  Around 10:00 AM Monday morning Andrea commented that he felt warm.  I took his temperature and it was 100.1.  We called the pediatrician and they told us to come in later that morning.  At 10:50 I took his temp again and it was 100.4.  We remembered the pediatrician saying that if a baby got a temperature in the first month or so of life they were admitted into the hospital and there were a lot of tests done.... well, we got to the pediatricians and that's what happened.  They took his temperature rectally and it was 101.9!  They then told us the procedure and said we needed to go to the Duke ER... :-(  Even knowing it was coming, for me, this was the hardest part.  Being told to take our sweet 18 day old baby to the hospital and then calling our parents to tell them we were going was tough.

Eli had IV fluids and antibiotics.

We got to the ER and since the pediatrician called ahead we did not have to wait long to be seen.  We got into a room in the Peds ER and they took urine, blood, an x-ray and did a spinal tap!  Then we waited a while for a room in the hospital.  It takes 48 hours for official negative results to return so we were admitted for at least that long.

Even in the hospital he was a really good boy.

Eli ended up having a fever of 103.6 on Tuesday morning and the fever broke late that night.  All of the tests came back negative and we were released on Wednesday night.  They said that it was most likely just a virus, but as said before, they had to make sure.  Eli had an IV the whole time and was hooked up to a pulse-ox monitor and ECG most of the time.  It made moving around with him quite interesting!

A happy face cause he knows he is going home.

We had really wonderful doctors and nurses.  We also have some darn cool friends... a lot of them in the medical field!  It was probably as good as a hospital stay can be.  Andrea's mom works @ Duke and came to visit, a Ranger's wife works @ Duke and came to visit, a bible study friend is a Duke med student and came to visit, and another couple in our bible study are both working at Duke and they also came to visit.  

Back home and admiring his Daffy Duck band-aid.

We apologize if you are first finding out about this through the Blog, but we didn't call many people.  We only called family, my work and our couples bible study because we needed their help.  We appreciate all of the prayers people have said for us.  We also thank God for his provision over Eli's health!