Cellulitis

Cellulitis.  Ask any mom of a Shwachman Diamond Syndrome kid and it is one of the things we fear!!! FEAR I tell ya!

Sam has been complaining of athletes foot for the past week.  I figured I would get to it but quite honestly, athlete's foot takes a back seat to loss of feeling in the feet, chronic nausea, CMV and the other things we've had on our plate this month.  I think I may have told him to pee on his foot while he was showering.  True story...I have had more than one doctor tell me that urine is the best cure for a fungal infection on the feet. It works, not that I've tried it but the boys have...really!

Anyways, last night, he really complained that it was hurting when he walked...that's not a typical symptom of fungal infections so I took a look.  OMG!! I couldn't believe the size of his toe!  Infection was oozing out and it was nasty.  I knew right off that we were dealing with cellulitis not athlete's foot.  I feel horrible to think I haven't paid more attention to him.

I ran him in to the doc first thing this morning to confirm the diagnosis.  He was quick to say that we needed to be extremely aggressive to keep this boy out of the hospital or IV Antibiotics. Sam is really low in the white blood cell area and his neutropenic at 900 so that is compounding the problem.  Not only that, he hasn't had a fever which means his body doesn't even recognize that there is anything out of the ordinary going on!  SCARY STUFF...it's the stuff nightmares are made of.  My nightmares at least.

They gave him a shot of Rocephin and started him on Keflex and foot soaks multiple times a day and I have to try to push the infection out after each soak.  Sam is not impressed and is not very co operative because he doesn't comprehend the seriousness of the situation.  I don't want to scare him but I'm not up for a daily battle either.  I am also adding Tea Tree Oil wraps and Coconut Oil dressings.

All this on the heels of Shelbie's rotten week and continued problems.  She had her transfusion yesterday.  She went into it sick so it has kicked her to the curb!  She can hardly even lift her poor head off the pillow.

Ugh...I keep telling myself it could be worse because it could be.  Sam is holding his own and as long as we can keep things stable that's good enough for me.  I just dread a blood infection or staph...blech...

Here is his poor toe.  You can see how the infection is even underneath his toenail and the tissue is swelling up over his nail.  So sad and so painful!