Unexpected & Unwanted Vacation!!!

Last Thursday Traxton started getting an ear infection. Since he still had the tube in his ear, the infection simply drained out. His pediatrician started him on some antibiotic drops, which usually clear up his ear infections quickly. Since he didn't seem bothered by his infection, I didn't really worry that it hadn't cleared up as fast as normal. The odd thing about this particular infection was the amount of drainage. Usually it is just a thin liquid that would drain out at night. This drainage was very thick and came out all day long. By Monday morning when it still hadn't cleared up, I called our Dr. again and he added an oral antibiotic. By that night he was running a high fever and acted really lethargic. Tuesday morning he seemed fine, but I noticed his head was swelling on the side of his infection. This was the same side that he had the hematoma after his surgery. Luckily I was able to get him an appointment with his doctor right away. Our pediatrician was really concerned, so he called our surgeon in Salt Lake. The surgeon said he needed to be seen either by him or by an ENT in St. George. I opted to stay in St George and see the ENT there. The ENT was really good and worked us in almost immediately. As soon as he looked at Traxton he said we needed to go to the ER to run some tests. The ENT met us at the ER where they sedated him and drained some of the fluid through a big needle. Traxton also had a CT to check if the infection had compromised the implant or the bone where the implant is secured.
The fluid removed was infected and he had a super high white blood count. He also had signs that the infection was in his blood stream. Because of all these issues, our surgeon wanted us in Salt Lake. Thankfully, we convinced them that we could drive ourselves and didn't need to be flown.
We came to PCMC last night and they admitted us right away. They suctioned out his ear to remove some of the fluid and continued him on IV antibiotics. Originally we were afraid that he would have to go into surgery to either clean out the infection, or even remove the implant. This morning our surgeon said it didn't look like we would have to do that. His fever is gone this morning and his white blood count is down a little. We will just keep him on the antibiotics for a few days and wait for the blood cultures to come back.
He is feeling much better today and is more like himself. If he didn't have needles in his arms and was constantly being pocked and prodded, he might think this was a vacation.
On a side note, Traxton started whimpering and crying when we pulled into the parking lot. I think he remembers this place. Poor kid.