growing baby

Tuesday morning Mateo woke up completely lethargic, he kept starting to fall asleep during breakfast and couldn’t really walk without holding Ilya’s hand.  When Ilya tried to take Mateo’s temperature, our thermometer said his temperature was too low to read.  When we called Mateo’s pediatrician on the phone, he told us to head to the emergency room.  Once there, Mateo was immediately admitted, measured with a temperature of 92.6 degrees (6 degrees too low!), and underwent a battery of tests (an EKG, a spinal tap, x-rays, 5 vials of blood drawn for testing, a urinary catheter to get a urine sample, and more).  He was also put on IV and under layers of blankets (one of which was inflated with constantly heated air).  By the afternoon, we were able to get his temperature up to almost normal and had ruled out some possibilities (the worst of which was meningitis), but Mateo still needed to be admitted to the hospital, in the children’s ward.  Mateo was so lethargic that, though he cried during the medical procedures, he didn’t protest being restricted to his bed. Ilya and I of course spent the night with Mateo in the hospital, though none of the three of us slept very well between the beeping IV monitors and middle of the night monitoring.

Wednesday, Mateo woke up so much better.  He had energy and was playful.  We were delighted that he was feeling so much better, though, of course, it made keeping him in bed that much harder.  At one point, a lovely nurse volunteer came by with lots of toys and played with Mateo.  She gave Mateo a big teddy bear and they practiced giving the bear an EKG, checking its blood pressure and temperature, putting on bandaids and lots of other things.  Mateo really enjoyed that part–especially since she brought a mat and put it on the floor so he could play out of bed by his IV drip monitor.  Much later, they said Mateo was doing well enough that he could be mostly disconnected from the IV and only reconnected periodically to receive his antibiotics (the medicine was too powerful to give orally).  Once freed from the machine, we put on Mateo’s shoes and socks and he happily jumped up and down the hall of the hospital.  So, Mateo was clearly *feeling* better, but we still had no idea what caused his system to go into shock on Tuesday morning.  (Neither Mateo’s pediatrician nor Ilya’s grandmother–who had been a pediatrician for many years in Russia–had ever seen a child’s temperature go so low.)

We also stayed in the hospital Wednesday night and were finally released shortly after noon Thursday (today).  Mateo is home, happy and playful.  However, we still want to get to the bottom of this problem.  We’ll be seeing Mateo’s pediatrician tomorrow afternoon and he will be giving us referrals to see immunologist and allergist specialists as well.  Mateo is doing well now, but wish us luck in figuring out how to keep him the wonderfully healthy boy we always want to see.