Pain, Insomnia, and a trip to the ER

I've never pulled an all-nighter... until Saturday night. I wanted to sleep, believe me, but Andrew was screaming pretty much the entire night and had a high fever. Christian was sick too, but at least he was consolable. Why do kids always get sick on the weekends? After looking at our options (2 urgent care clinics that were over $100 each and an hour away by train), we decided to head to the ER and pay our $50 copay. It is ridiculous that it comes down to that, but what is a Mom to do? We showed up at the ER at 6 AM with 2 sick boys who had moaned and cried all night. Do you know what they told us... it is just the common cold and give them ibuprofen every 6 hours.

Are you kidding me?

I know my child doesn't scream all night from a runny nose. After Andrew was examined by the 3rd doctor, they finally looked at his throat and said that it was really red and that was probably the problem. They also noticed some sores on his hands and mouth and said they were probably from the virus causing his sore throat that was transferred when he sucked on his fingers, and we should just watch them. We left feeling defeated, annoyed and extremely tired.

The next morning, after another sleepless night, I took Andrew to our pediatrician to check his sores and see if we could get some answers for the high fever and insomnia. Less than one minute after I walked through the door, she diagnosed him with a severe case of viral herpes simplex 1 (cold sores). She looked in his mouth and saw cold sores all over his cheeks, tongue, and throat. Uh, ER doctors, what were you looking at? The cold sores were also all over his fingers and lips. He has around 20 cold sores that we can count and maybe more in his mouth.

I'm sure the pain is severe and he refuses to eat or sleep much. At least now we know what we are up against. He is on 3 different medications and hopefully within 5-7 days he will be back to normal. Unfortunately, since the sores are highly contagious and really dangerous to the eyes, we have to cover his hands with gloves as much as possible to keep the sores from spreading. Poor little boy... at least he is still smiling for the camera.

* Christian's fever broke shortly after we returned from the ER. Apparently, some kids catch the virus and it causes a fever, but doesn't really affect them in any other way.