Skin Infection

Over the last 24 hours or so, Cannon's G-tube site has been looking a bit suspicious of irritation or possible infection. Having conjunctivitis let us know that he does has some sort of bug going on in his body, at least in his eyes. Yesterday at 2:00 in the afternoon, Cannon threw up all of his formula while I was still feeding him. It was strange because Cannon has never thrown up before. I thought that it was because I hadn't propped him up enough while I was feeing him, making it easy to come back up. As we cleaned him up, we realized he felt a little warm. Once we took his temperature, we found out he had a mild fever of 99.5. Cannon's normal temp usually rests at 97 so we kept on eye on him. He was uncomfortable but able to sleep so we waited a little while to let his tummy settle before we fed him again.

Near 4:00 we tried feeding him again and he threw up everything again and was now running a slightly higher fever. As the evening went on we kept thinking it wasn't that bad and we could just keep him cool with cold compresses. At midnight, he woke up screaming and had a fever of 101.5. It was then that we realized the red spot was a lot more intense with fever blisters beginning to form on the skin, and a large bump underneath the redness. We quickly called Dr. Weaver and told him we are heading to the hospital. As we were driving to the hospital, Dr. Weaver called and let the ER we were coming in and gave them a brief history on Menkes. It hit me again, that not only did we have a very sick child, but we have a child that needs an introduction before we get there. I know the doctors and nurses were online looking up Menkes disease and learning all they could from a website in the next 5 minutes before we arrived.

Upon arrival, Cannon's red mark now had streaking coming from it. His temp had hit 102.3. I was thankful we didn't wait any longer. The staff was amazing at making us feel taken care of as they hooked Cannon up to monitors and IV's to get some fluids and anti-biotics going. We've now been in the hospital for a little over 15 hours and so far, most of the tests have come back normal including: white blood count, x-rays and a culture done on the fluid inside one of the fever blisters.

Bottom line is- they are treating him for the most serious of diseases but reassuring us that it is only precautionary and they expect him to just have a minor bacterial infection that will subside with antibiotics and we'll be able to go home- best case scenario is 3 days. I will try to keep posting as we learn any new information. Thank you for your continued love and support.

Picture taken around 5:00 PM
Picture taken at 12:00 AM
Picture taken at 1:30 AM
Not being able to find a good vein, they hooked up to the IV through his scalp
Picture taken at 2:00 AM
Picture taken at 8:00 AM