Hellish May

We have been battling a skin infection on Noah since the beginning of May. It has been thoroughly awful and I have spent everyday since it has started feeling like I am about to cry and/or be sick from worry. The following pictures occur over about 10 days. The infection got so bad, so fast. I haven't been able to post the pictures until now because I really couldn't bear seeing images of Noah looking like this without wanting to cry. He is now looking more like a regular baby again. We are still not out of the woods, though. He is on pretty harsh antibiotics and I am still constantly worried about how it is effecting his tummy, and whether they are really working. 

Saturday, May 2: Noah has a fever and we take him to urgent care. They say to watch him, but that it is probably just a virus. His face is perfect.

Wednesday, May 6: We take Noah to the doctor because he has several whitehead pimples on his face, in addition to his excema (the redness of his cheeks is typical of his excema flare-ups). He is put on Cephalexin antibiotic for impetigo.

Friday, May 8: It gets so much worse. So so so much worse. The infections spread up his face and around his lips and crust over. I call the doctor again and they say that it takes time for the antibiotic to kick in, but that he is clearly still contagious. We spend the next 3 days swaddling him and carrying him constantly to prevent him from touching his face. Noah is very brave and not nearly as fussy as one would expect. In the meantime, he passes the infection to me in the course of breast feeding. 

Tuesday, May 12: We go back to the doctor thinking the the infection is getting better, but she says it isn't responding as well as it should. She suspects he might have an MRSA strain of impetigo and switches his antibiotic to Bactrim. I also start taking Bactrim for my infection. Within 1 day he looks so much better. 

Wednesday, May 13: Noah breaks out into hives that night. We go to urgent care. He is allergic to Bactrim (sulfa antibiotics). Furthermore, so am I. His antibiotic gets switched to Clindamycin. 

We were supposed to leave for a week long trip to the midwest on Friday morning. I was supposed to be in my very good friend Kateri's wedding. We had been looking forward to this trip for half a year. I have to call and tell Kateri that I can't come, and she is wonderful about it. I think it is too risky, since if anything happens with this new antibiotic, we'll be in the airport. I am sick over all of this and really sad. 

Saturday, May 16: Noah is doing better. He still looks more or less like the last picture above. We have to give him 1 tsp (5 mls) of antibiotic three times a day. 1 tsp while cooking seems like nothing, but putting it into a babies mouth....it is a ton. It tastes awful (two different doctors warned us about that). Giving him the medicine is a two person job (me prying his little mouth open and Grant squirting it in, while he squirms and cries). We currently have 21 more times of doing it. It seems like an eternity. I'm still worried about it giving him diarrhea, which I know it inevitably will do, so I do a poop analysis after every diaper and we are tracking his wet diapers for signs of dehydration. I'm exhausted and praying that this antibiotic kills everything off and little boy can get better.