Jackson did so well with his surgery. Everything was healing up nicely, and I never had to give him any pain medicine other than Tylenol. Thursday night he stopped eating and wouldn't even drink anything. When we tried to make him drink juice, he would cry out in pain every time he swallowed. Friday he got worse, and after a trip to the pediatrician and radiology at the hospital (for x-rays of his neck), he was diagnosed with tonsillitis. As soon as we started antibiotics, he was back to himself. Monday, I started noticing that he wasn't moving his neck very much. He just seemed stiff. When he would turn to look at something, instead of turning his neck, he would turn his whole body. I took a look at his incision site and it was red, swollen, and a knot had formed under the stitches. After a call to the surgeon's nurse and a trip to our pediatrician's office, we were instructed to go to the Le Bonheur ER!!
Finally getting him to eat Friday evening...YOGURT!!
At the ER, they started an iv to get a blood count and in case they needed it later (they didn't). He was so so good the whole time. He would hide his head in my shoulder when someone new came in the room, but he did whatever they wanted him to do. He never even whimpered with the iv, but he hated wearing all the tape and the bandage.
The doctors determined that the tonsillitis he had over the weekend had caused this infection, and they decided we could treat it at home with antibiotics. The knot under his incision was hard with just a small spot in the middle that was soft. We are still going back to the doctor every few days to make sure the center, soft spot does not become abscessed.
This was so scary, and our first time in the Le Bonheur ER. We saw so many scary things that night, and the whole time we just felt so thankful for our (basically) healthy children.
