Reed's 1st case of strep throat

I saw both of Reed's kidneys. I saw his tiny prostate and his bladder. I saw it all on an ultrasound that he had to have Sunday evening. Seeing my child's organs on a monitor while a tech measures and evaluates without speaking a word is anxiety-provoking, especially after everything else he/we had been through a couple of hours prior to the ultrasound.

All of it started with a super high fever that was not responding to Tylenol and ibuprofen. We took him to an urgent care center for children where they did a step test and gave him a thorough exam. They thought he might also have appendicitis. They also mistakenly referred to Holly as Reed's grandma, but that is another very funny story. He had to have his blood drawn, he had to give a urine specimen, and he had an IV so that he could get receive 4 liters of fluids. He did all of these things without a struggle. He probably felt too bad to struggle. After appendicitis was ruled out and a nasty case of step was ruled in, we were told that he had blood in his urine (both samples) and it was most likely because he had such a high fever. These things can happen, and it is probably nothing, but sometimes these things happen and other scarier health issues are discovered accidentally with routine testing, which is why we were sent to a local hospital for a stat renal ultrasound. The ultrasound looked fine, thankfully. Days and days later, Reed is pretty much well after being out of commission all weekend, developing a rash on Tuesday afternoon (Scarlet fever) and finally getting back to school today, Thursday. He has become a pro with the thermometer, taking his temperature obsessively over the past few days. I almost hid it, scared his next diagnosis would be obsessive compulsive disorder. Since out of sight does not necessarily mean out of mind, I decided to just let the boy have his fun reading the numbers, which were finally moving in the right direction - down.

His first case of strep throat was quite dramatic and going from "he's got strep" to "you need to take him to get an ultrasound right now" is ridiculously unnerving. Thank goodness he does not get sick all that often. It's going to take a while to mentally recover from this one, especially since we still need to follow up with the urine situation. Here's to hoping that no traces of blood are found in his urine next week. Cheers!