Another trip to the ED

Sometimes being a medical provider can be scary when things happen to your children.  For example, this weekend my son's neck started swelling up with multiple lymph nodes under his ears, behind his ears, on the back and front of his neck.  Unfortunately I know too much.  Sleep was difficult last night and I woke early this morning with the decision that as soon as he woke up, if his neck wasn't better, I would bring him to the ED if for nothing else to get the peace of mind that only a CBC would give me in this situation.

It actually all started about 3 weeks ago, when his left eye started swelling underneath it for a couple days.  Then he got sent home from school with a fever and complaints of a tummy ache.  He had an ear infection, and I'm pretty sure then he had some swollen lymph nodes.  We took him to his family doc, who is also my colleague.  He had never seen anything like his eye, as I hadn't either, but he also noticed that the conjuctiva was also red under the lower lid.  We decided to put him on Augmentin as he had been on a couple other antibiotics this past fall for other ear infections and a case of tonsillitis.  He was on a strong dose that cleared up the ear infection well in regular time, but the eye took almost 2 weeks of the Augmentin to clear up.  We finally stopped the Augmentin about 3 days ago, and everything looked good until yesterday.  Today, in addition to the lymph nodes, his eye started pinking up underneath it as well.

Long story short, we spent a few hours in the ED waiting.  Waited about an hour to be seen, then about as long for the blood results - I think we were there about 3 hours total.  The doctor was very thorough, as we discussed cat scratch fever, TB (he had a negative skin test already this fall), other mycoplasms, strep, mono, etc.  His ear infection is gone and his tonsils aren't red.  He doesn't have a fever and no exposure to cats.  No one else in the family has any infectious processes right now...  The CBC was perfectly normal (to my definite relief) with a normal differential.  The mono spot and strep screen were both negative, as I figured they would be since he hasn't had fever, just got off Augmentin, and hasn't been tired.  The doctor called our local ENT and discussed it with him, and he's agreed to fit my son into his schedule this week.  So that is where we left off. 

I will sleep much better tonight.