Jackson and the terrible, horrible, very bad day

If I could redo a day in our lives, I think last Friday would totally be one of them...

It all started a few weeks ago, when we all got sick on our anniversary. Par for the course, as soon as Jackson finished up his antibiotics he got sick again. We went to his allergist and he was given the official label of an asthmatic toddler. Jackson got another round of steroids to help him breath, but besides his nebulizer medicine - there wasn't much else to do. He has allergies and asthma and we live in South Louisiana.

Fast forward to last week. Jackson was no better, no worse. Just totally irritable and throwing fits left and right. I tried to remind myself that I'd be cranky too if I couldn't breath. We counted to 10 a lot and drank lots of wine after bedtime.

Thursday night was unbearable. Jackson cried from the time I picked him up from school until he finally passed out around 9. During his bath the cries turned in to screams and shaking from pain. I could not figure out what was causing him so much pain. He wouldn't even let me wash the shampoo out of his hair...and that's when I saw it.

Jackson had a marble sized lump behind his left ear and it was red and tender to the touch.

right after Jackson's bath, when I first noticed the lump

I took this pictures and sent it to my mom and mother-in-law, who were both as dumbfound as I was. We couldn't tell if it was a bite or a bruise - certainly the farthest thing from what he was diagnosed with!

Around midnight, Jackson was sleeping but momma was up worrying...

Of course, the timing of this lump couldn't have been any worse. We were flying to St. Louis Friday afternoon and Mr. went up for work the day before us. I had an out of town meeting all day on Friday, that I would have canceled had I known what was about to happen...

I called Jackson's pediatrician first thing Friday morning and arranged for my mom to take Jackson to have his lump looked at. I went on with my boss to Baton Rouge and met with a client all morning. We took a quick break at noon and I had numerous missed call from not only my mom, but two doctor's offices as well.

Thank God my mom is so well connected with the medical community where we live, she took him to a few doctors Friday morning to address the multiple issues with Jackson.

The mysterious lump behind Jackson's ear was diagnosed as mastoiditis, which means that he has such a bad ear infection, the infection went into the bone behind his ear and the lump was his bone. The link has much more information about what it actually is.  Serious shit.

Jackson never ran fever or tugged at his ears, and never had drainage.  We've had no trouble with his ears since he got tubes last December.  Jackson was given an antibiotic shot, another round of steroids, and two additional antibiotics that he takes orally for 10 days...we're averaging at least one massive diaper blow out a day.  Oh and if you've lost count, that would be his third round of steroids this month!!!

On top of the mastoiditis, Jackson has an ear infection, server sinus infection, and tonsillitis.  So that nasty eye drainage and "allergy eyes" were because his sinus were so infected, not because his allergies were acting up - thanks Mr. Allergist for missing the boat on that one! And now his ENT wants to talk about taking out his tonsils...it's always something...

If you're still reading this post, our day doesn't get much better after this.  This all happened before noon.

After excusing myself from my meeting to call everyone back, my boss agreed that we needed to end our meeting early so that I could see about Jackson.  So nice right?!? Well it's a darn good thing we left when we did.  Our hour ride home took nearly three hours because of road construction!

Did I mention that we had a 5 o'clock flight to catch - yep, we came dangerously close to missing our flight...until it got canceled! So between seeing about my sick baby, picking up all of his medications, now I had to call the airline to see what the heck we were supposed to do!

Since our flight was canceled due to mechanic issues, they were able to put me on another flight with a different airline.  Great news, I had an extra hour to get to the airport and I'd get in to St. Louis a little earlier!  In theory, this was great news.  The reality was that our connecting flight in Houston was delayed almost 5 hours.

Does he remind you of Dennis the Menace - he should!

If you've never spent 5 hours in an airport with a severely sick child, totally jacked up on steroids, running wild - all while trying to keep you bags in tow and not lose your shit - well then consider yourself blessed!

Thankfully, Jackson was so worn out that he slept the whole way to St. Louis and I was able to recharge as well.

We finally made it to my sister's house in St. Louis around 1AM...more on that next!