Thursday, June 21, 2018

My misdiagnosis

Proteus mirabilis
I'm still wiping the egg off my face.

For the longest time, I've been carping about C.'s neurological fevers. In recent posts, I've noted their increasing frequency and severity. The Hubby and I even wrote to the neurologist about it last week.

But for certainty's sake we brought her to the pediatrician on Wednesday for a clinical exam.

He found nothing pathological. But our thorough prize-of-a-doctor ordered blood and urine tests nonetheless. If those were clear, he said, it would be safe to presume she's really got rising neurological fevers.

On Thursday, after the visiting home nurse drew blood, C.'s fever spiked to 40.2 Celsius (about 104.4 Fahrenheit)!

So despite the difficulty involved, the Hubby rushed C. to the local HMO clinic for the nurse to take urine via a catheter and then rushed the specimen to another clinic for transfer to the lab. (The visiting nurse, a male, refuses to insert catheters into female patients.)

It was immediately clear that C. had a urinary tract infection.

So within an hour, we'd started her on Cefuroxime. Since then, her fever has been steadily dropping. She's back to her usual slightly elevated temperature with an amazing, fluky 36.8 C thrown in last night! In Fahrenheit, that's 98.2. I can't remember her ever having a reading that low.

Her pediatrician surmises this infection has been simmering (and C. silently suffering, of course) for a while.

Today the urine culture results arrived: Proteus mirabilis

It's actually quite a work of art (above).

As for the moral of this story, I'm sure it's obvious. Never presume anything about our complicated children who can't convey to us what they're feeling.

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