Another Doctor Visit

What a week...and it's only Wednesday!

Elijah woke up Monday morning with a runny nose and a cough. No big deal.

Then the cough got progressively worse. As of last night, he was sounding pretty nasty everytime he would cough. I ran the humidifier and gave him some Children's Nighttime Triaminic.

This morning, the same thing. Only when he would cough, he couldn't stop. He would have a 5 minute coughing spell then stop for about a minute (or less) and then start right back again. Sometimes he sounded like he was choking. (Did I mention he was up at 6:30 this morning?)

Then my dad called about 11 this morning and asked if we wanted to go to lunch with him. So we got dressed and hopped in the car and met my dad at the restaurant. As we were eating, Elijah just laid his head in my lap and wouldn't eat. By this point he felt like he was running a fever and his eyes were red all the way around them. My dad said, "He really doesn't look like he feels well. You need to take him to the doctor." If you know my dad, he never goes to the doctor. So when my dad said it, it confirmed that I should take Elijah. Being the same day I needed an appointment, I knew we would never get in at the family doctor, so I took him down to the Minute Clinic at CVS.

When we got there, there weren't any seats left but this sweet teenage boy stood up and said for us to take his seat (true hospitality!). We were the 3rd on the waiting list. But that same teenage boy, who was the next to be seen let all 3 people go in front of him. I couldn't believe it. The doctor and I were talking about how sweet he was and that his parent's definitely raised him right (you don't see that too often anymore). So anyway, the doctor looked at Elijah. Right away she noticed he has a double ear infection and said that his ears were neon red. She said they looked really bad. This makes his 10th ear infection he's had since he was born. She also said his throat was red and he possibly has strep throat but she wasn't going to test him because she was already going to put him on an antibiotic for his ears. And then we got more bad news. She pulled out the stethescope and listened to his chest then looks at me and goes "Did you know he has a heart murmur?" I told her that our family doctor said something briefly about a funny noise his heart was making when we followed up with her about his case of the croup a few weeks back. But she never specifically mentioned a murmur. She recommended we went to see our regular doctor ASAP. Probably Friday so his antiobiotics have a chance to kick in and they can check up on them when we're there as well.

Has anyone out there in blogland had a child with a heart murmur? This scares me. I need some advice. He already has quite a medical history in his (almost) 3 years on earth. Now just one more thing to add to it. :(

Hopefully this medicine will kick in soon and my wild and rambuctious little boy will be back on his feet.