Two Nights at the *Glorious* Cardon Children's Hospital

Before I start this long story, I want to warn you that it will be long and there are some gory pictures involved. We are now home and recovery continues. Here is how our week began and ended.

Monday began as any other normal day in our house. Business as usual. Connor wasn't feeling very well, I was concerned about his cough. I went to pick him up and his babysitter told me he wasn't feeling well and that his toe was swollen and sore. I had no idea he had anything wrong with his toe! So, we took off his shoe and sock (he about went through the roof screaming with pain... a sure sign of a problem since he has such a high pain tolerance.) Sure enough, his right big toe was red and swollen, we figured it must be an infected ingrown toenail. When we got home I noticed he had a slight fever. I figured we had better see the dr on Tuesday. Here is how Connor looked that morning before our dr appt.
Pretty happy and smiley, don't you think? Sure enough, infected ingrown toe nail, antibiotic prescribed and we were on our way home. At the dr office his fever was higher, we figured that was nothing some Tylenol wouldn't fix. That night I was at class and Daryle sent me a text that Connor now had a fever of 102.4! I couldn't believe it. So, I got home around 9:30 and he was just miserable with chills and fever. I called the after hours hot line at 10 and around midnight I got a call from a nurse who told me "we don't really worry until they reach 105, is he alert?" What??!! She assured me he was fine since he WAS on an antibiotic after all. I was up with him most of the night and ran into school at 6 am to get more sub plans together. At 8 I called the dr office because not only was his temp up over 101 all night but his toe was looking worse. I was debating dr office or ER. They said come on in, I was there in 2o min. The dr took one look, picked her jaw up off the ground and calmly said, "I think he needs to be admitted, looks like he will need surgery." Not what I wanted to hear! We spent most of the day waiting for a bed to open up at the new children's hospital. Here is what the toe looked like just before we went to the dr that morning.

Here is how Connor was looking on our way to the hospital. Still a fever and the toe was getting bigger by the minute, literally.

These big chess and checker pieces are in the hospital lobby, he had some fun here. I swear, not much can get this guy down for long!

We were admitted around 1 and the toe was getting worse. We were now told they were worried about MRSA (a type of staph infection) and there was a concern that it could be in the bone. Thankfully it wasn't. At first surgery was scheduled for 6, but at 4 as they were trying to get in an IV the dr came and said, "We are taking him in 20 minutes." As parents you are thinking a few things. Did an OR just open up? Or is this super serious? We were just trying to remain calm. Here is how the toe looked just before going into surgery. It is blurry but the best I could do.

As you might be able to see, the toe was getting taller and taller. It looked like a bandage was stuck on there but there was no bandage at all.

The surgery was quick and went well. Here we are in post-op. He finally got to drink something!

He slept very well that night.

This is how he woke up the next morning. The fever disappeared the minute the infection was removed. Happy Connor has returned!

Travis handled the whole thing pretty well too. Grandpa was able to pick him up and bring him to the hospital. He wasn't allowed to go into the room, but Connor was able to come out into the waiting area for a short visit. Here they are playing together for a bit. From what I hear, Travis was really missing his little brother and kept saying that all of the rules were "no fair".

They even got to do some wagon rides for a bit until Connor tried climbing out of the wagon... back to the room we went!

Last night was more eventful. I could write a book about it. Bottom line is the surgeon never came in to check on him yesterday. When our pediatrician came in this morning he was shocked and upset at what had transpired. The surgeon had called me around 8:30 the night before and was quite rude to me. As our pediatrician put it, he was going to "make some heads roll" and wouldn't you know within 30 minutes that surgeon was in our room to check on Connor. He took off the bandage and said it was looking good. Of course he had impecable bedside manner at this point. Daryle and my dad were also there and we knew the the hospital administration knew how upset we were. (Thank goodness we are not going back to him, our dr made sure of that!) As we were waiting for the nurse to come bandage it up Connor stretched in his sleep and the nail flipped backwards....OUCH!!!! We got that under control and were discharged at 12:35. I am so thankful. From the beginning we were told a minimum of 48 hours if all went well. Thank goodness it was just about 48 hourse exactly. I love the dr from our peds office, I am going to send him a thank you card for his help. I am so glad somebody fought for us and there are people out there who do care. Here is how his toe looks now, they reattached his toenail even though it will fall off eventually anyway.

This just goes to show that things are returning to normal around here. As I drove home I heard Connor crying, I looked back only to find this:

Yes, he unwrapped his bandage while on the freeway!! But doesn't he look happy?? What a little goofball. We are so happy to be back HOME with happy healthy children. We are so blessed..