Explain This

We have learned a lot over the years of how to treat the weird reactions Caleb has to certain things. Ant bites--start the Benadryl immediately or else the area will puff up like a balloon. And prepare yourself mentally for a very long night to follow. Any sort of bug bite--start the bleach baths, ointment on the area, and nasal swabs to prevent staph infections. The poor kid has had 4 staph infections in 3 years.

Last Wednesday, I noticed Caleb's left cheek/neck was swelling a bit. I had my sister-in-law look at it that night when we went over to her house for dinner. (She used to be a nurse before she stayed home to be a mommy.) She had no explanation as it was too high to be a swollen lymph node. Caleb was acting completely normal, and it wasn't bothering him, so I didn't worry. When Matt got home from work, he didn't think that the swelling was very noticeable, so we put him to bed without a second thought.

Caleb woke up screaming at 10:30 pm. The swelling had doubled in size! While Matt was consoling Caleb, I called the nurse hotline. He did not have a fever. There was nothing unusual inside his mouth; he had just had a dentist appt. 6 weeks earlier. The area that was swollen was not hot, or red, or hard. The nurse suggested giving him some Ibuprofen, and because the swelling was getting bigger, to go to the emergency room. Matt and a close friend gave Caleb a priesthood blessing. We felt like everything was going to be okay, but that we should go to the ER to figure out what was going on. Caleb, who is usually fearful of going to the doctor, was such a good boy! He let them look in his mouth and touch the area, etc. The nurse who took all of Caleb's vitals had no idea what caused the swelling. Three doctors looked at it and drew the conclusion that his parotid gland swelled. They said that something he ate that day that was sour caused it. (He had not eaten anything sour though!) They gave him some medicine (clindamycin), waited until it took effect (the swelling wasn't getting any worse), then sent him home.

Caleb acted fine the next morning, which was a preschool day, and said he wanted to go to preschool (preschool is at our house). All during preschool he was mostly fine. He did ask for some Tylenol about halfway through. The funny thing is not one of the kids at preschool noticed this huge lump on the side of Caleb's neck. When Dallin arrived, Caleb's cousin, I told him to look at Caleb's owwie on his face. Dallin looked all over Caleb's face and said, "where?"

By the end of preschool, I thought the swelling looked worse though. I wasn't really satisfied with the doctor's conclusions from the ER the previous night after doing a lot of research about the parotid gland on the Internet. What I read didn't seem to match up with what was going on with Caleb. Matt and I decided it would be best to talk the situation over with Caleb's pediatrician. So that afternoon Caleb, Carter, and I headed to the doctor. By this point, there was a harder area in the middle of the swelling that was also red. Still no fever, still nothing abnormal inside his mouth. The pediatrician thought it was a swollen lymph node that possibly got infected with staph which caused the swelling to intensify. She drew a circle around the harder spot so we could gauge if the swelling was getting worse or better. She gave him a shot of clindamycin to jumpstart the medicine, and Caleb didn't even cry!!! (because he wasn't expecting it).

The swelling finally went down slowly over the course of 4 days with taking clindamycin 3x per day. I don't feel that any of the doctor's conclusions were right. When Caleb gets a staph infection, he is in a lot of pain. For example, when Caleb had staph on his thigh, he limped around and at one point could not even put pressure on that leg. So I don't think it was a staph infection. The doctors at the ER didn't think it was a lymph node, and the research I did on the parotid gland didn't seem to match up either. The funny thing is that Caleb acted completely normal through it all, except for that first night when he woke up screaming in pain. I would ask him if his face hurt during the day, and he would say, "No, it's getting better." I also asked him why his face had an owwie, and he said it was because of his lion costume. I'm completely stumped by it all.

Here's a picture of the poor boy. This was pretty close to the biggest it got. I think the swelling is at least the size of a pool ball.