Mono

My baby has Mono- mononucleosis. WTF?!?! How does a 17 month old get mono.

Wednesday night around 6:30 B started burning up and I took his temp 104.7 . At that point I had it with waiting per my pediatrician's advice. It was day 4 of a fever, 3 of which were above 104, and each day the highest reading was higher than the prior days high. So we went to CHOP- Children's Hospital of Pennsylvania. This is the most gorgeous hospital I have ever seen- it is amazing. I hope not to see it again, but it is so nice to have such a renowned place less than 10 minutes drive away.

B was checked out- strep tested again because his throat had a "raging infection with puss". That was negative- so not bacterial, but viral. Which means no antibiotics to help- but the wait and see and give tylenol and motrin treatment. That sucks. I realize that it is no different from my peds advice- but at least they gave us an answer, said it was clear the fever was from the infection, and gave us a timeline for healing. This made me feel much better as I was beginning to worry a lot about something else being wrong with him that we were missing.

Now we are in healing mode. His fever seems to have peaked and has been lower the past 24 hrs. He is still waking at night so I am giving him meds to ease the discomfort. They said the fever should be gone by the end of this weekend and that within another week or so he should be back to himself- just make sure we push fluids because dehydration is a big risk right now. Fortunately mono in kids is much less severe than the adult version (think chicken pox vs. shingles). So he is alright, he is recovering, and this week has really just sucked.

Oh- and surprise surprise, today I found a new molar and 2 canines popping through. That must have made the poor little guy extra miserable these past few days. I feel so bad for him, but am also kind of happy it was all piled on so as not to extend his misery.