Luke's stay in the hospital

This last Thursday Luke started acting very irritable to the point of crying very hard every time I would move him. He had a temp of 102.5 that afternoon, so we headed to the Dr.'s office that evening. By the time we got there, his temp was back down and he was giving the goofy grin to the doctor! The doc believed me despite the smiles and took some blood anyway and told me to keep a close eye on Luke through the night. Well, the temp was up to 101 by the time we got back home and it stayed there all night - even with Tylenol. At 4am it was up to 103, so we were back at the door of the doctor by 6. This time he saw how horrible Luke really was feeling and sent us straight to the ER. Because of Luke's age, they decided to do the full work up. Urine, poopie, and blood tests to boot. Luke is a rather chunky baby (hee hee), so it took about 7 pokes to finally get blood and an IV. It was so sad to hear him scream every time. I really felt like punching those nurses a few times! All the tests came back negative, so that only left the one more thing... a spinal tap to check for Meningitis. The doc sat down and explained to me all of the horrible things that could go wrong and then asked me to sign a consent!! I could not stand to watch this one, so I stepped out to only hear my poor baby crying. Then I heard him crying again. Come to find out, after 2 tries, they did not even get the fluid!!! They admitted us now for observarion and did some chest x-rays. A little later they decided to give the ol' spinal tap another try. So, again the I have to sign the consent and 2 more tries later, they finally have what they need. Luke was so tired and uncomfortable. Meanwhile, Ben is stuck at home because I took the car with Ethan's car seat. Thankfully, some girls from our youth group came over and stayed with Ethan, so daddy could come to the hospital. Later that day a doctor came in and said he thought that Luke's heart looked a little large on the chest x-ray and that he was hearing a heart murmur. So now, they did an EKG and an echo-cardiogram which all came out completely normal - just wanted to make this whole experience even more worry-some! They put Luke on antibiotics just incase this stuff happened to be a bacterial infection and we settled in for a 3 day stay waiting for the fever to go away and the tests all to come back. Friday night he peaked to 103, Sat. 101, Sun. 99, so Monday morning, they decided that it must have been a viral infection and we could finally go home. I was so happy to see him unhooked from all those wires! He is doing better and better every day. His smiles are returning and I can hold him without him crying!!