Strep Throat

Grayson got his first serious illness this weekend. Saturday morning we noticed that he was hot, so we took his temperature and it was 101.5. He was pretty sad and just wanted to be held all day. On Saturday night it was up to 102.5. He's had fevers before and always pretty high, so we figured it was just another virus that needed to run its course. Then Sunday morning when we got up I noticed he had a rash all under his diaper and that it was spreading up to his stomach. This had never happened before, so we called the on-call doctor who instructed us to just keep giving him Tylenol to keep the fever down. By Sunday night the rash pretty much covered his whole little body, and his fever was up to 104. We gave him a cool bath called the doctor back who said to alternate Motrin and Tylenol to get the fever down. We had never given him Motrin before because of all his tummy issues since it's supposed to be pretty hard on babies, but we tried it anyway. He was up crying from 3:45 a.m. on Sunday night. Monday morning his fever was down, but the rash was still head to toe, so we called and made an appointment with his pediatrician. The doctor was baffled at what it might be, but with the rash he decided to do a strep test. It came back positive! So sad!! He gave him a shot of penicillin and told us he'd be feeling better (and not be contagious anymore) after 24 hours. After two hours trying to entertain a sick baby we were on our way. We were also instructed to disinfect the whole house and everything Grayson touched since strep is a bacteria. Yuck! Grayson was pretty good the rest of the day Monday, but Monday night did not go well at all. He was up pretty much all night just crying, so David and I took turns staying up rocking and holding him. His throat hurt so he hadn't been eating well since Saturday either. Finally we survived Monday, and he did indeed feel better by Tuesday and ate and slept better which was good for all of us! I hope it is a long time before he is sick again!