Encephalitis Cases
Peyton
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Hi, I wanted to share the story of my beautiful baby boy, Peyton. It all started one morning, my 3 year old and I woke up, I turned over to look at the clock and to my amazement it’s 11 am. I remember thinking to myself, “Wow! I never get to sleep in this late.” We go over to Peyton to wake him up and he’s not budging, which is very unusual because he was 5 months old and he was not a hard baby to wake up. I rolled him over and he just had a glazed over look in his eyes, I could literally pick up his leg and drop it and he still wouldn’t budge. Initially, I thought that maybe he was just not feeling well because my 3 year old had a little 24 our bug the day before. I called the pediatrician and talked to his nurse and explained his symptoms but he was not running a fever at this point. I took him into the doctor’s office 1 hour later and they did some blood work (which came back normal), they did a urinalysis because they thought that maybe my 3 year old had gotten into some medicine and gave it to the baby. That also came back normal and Peyton didn’t even move during the catheter. He had stopped eating and was pretty lethargic. The doctor gave me two options: I could either take him home and force fluids every hour and then bring him back in the morning and if he hadn’t perked up then he would do a spinal tap or we could admit him for observation and just like the other, if he hadn’t perked up he would do the spinal tap. I decided to go ahead and take him home and that night, at 7pm, the left side of his face started to twitch. I took him to the ER, they did the spinal tap and it came back showing that his WBC’s were slightly elevated but there was no blood in the spinal fluid so the DR’s were almost positive that it wouldn’t be HSE because they said that with herpies there is always blood in the spinal fluid. This is where the fever begins, at this point it’s lingering around 101 degrees. The doctor’s at our hospital went ahead and alerted the doctors at Cook Children’s Medical Center in Fort Worth to let them know what was going on. At first they were thinking that he possibly had viral meningitis. We stayed at our hospital for 2 days until the cultures from the spinal tap came back. Over this 2 day period we had a real battle trying to keep his temperature stable, it got up to 104.7. I remember the look on the doctor’s face when he told me what Peyton had…it still gives me goose bumps just thinking about it. No words could ever describe the feeling that I felt at that moment. All these people started coming in telling me things and I felt like I was in pause and everything else was in fast forward. The Dr told us that the plane would be at the airport in about 1 hour and we needed to figure out who was going to go with him because only 1 of us was allowed on the plane. CCMC’s flight crew arrived and right before putting him on the stretcher Peyton’s blood pressure dropped so they administered a bolus of normal saline, which thankfully fixed that problem. I never thought that I would ever see my little baby on a stretcher being put into an airplane. When we arrived to CCMC, Peyton was admitted to the PICU and a 27 lead EEG was immediately started. The neurologist came in and informed me that there was damage done to his brain (right temporal lobe and left parietal lobe: he had a MRI before we left home). I asked the doc if Peyton was going to die and the answer that I got was “I don’t know, it’s a possibility. This is a very aggressive disease.” At least he was honest, I guess. Anyways, Peyton remained in PICU for 3 days so we could get his seizures under control. He never had to go on a ventilator and other than his previous temp and that 1 time BP drop his vital signs remained stable. He was in a coma like state for approximately 2 weeks. I remember thinking to myself that all I wanted to do was see him smile. Fortunately, he finally started to wake up and everyday he would stay awake longer and longer. He had and still has weakness issues but he’s getting better each day. I want to thank all the doctors that were involved. Each one played a very vital role. He started receiving acyclovir within the 1st 24 hours of being sick. He has delays and we’re currently trying to get his seizures under control. It’s going to be a long hard road but I have hope and faith that Peyton will do great, he already surprises us every day and I thank God that I get to continue to see his beautiful smile everyday. Thank you for taking the time to read our story. Lindsay Texas, USA  Posted: May 19, 2010 |
