Nearly 3 weeks after we were sent home with iv antibiotics and 3 days before we were to stop his antibiotics, Tristan started to run a fever of up to 101F. And he started breaking out in a red itchy rash all over his body. That night he started vomiting and his temperature reached 103F and we took him back to the ED at Brenners. They determined that it was a possible allergic reaction to the antibiotics (red man syndrome) or something viral and sent us home. For the next 2 days the rash got even worse and he would continue to have a fever. After a few days off the antibiotics and he still had the rash, we took him to his pediatrician and she prescribed rest as she believed it was still the antibiotics working its way out of his system.
His scheduled MRI was 2 days later. Tristan was still having fevers and the rash got so bad sometimes that he would just sit and cry. The pediatrician recommended Benadryl for the itching which we later found out was making it worse cause he is actually allergic to it. (Another rare set of circumstances, poor kid) Finally the MRI was here and Dr. Couture the Neurosurgeon who performed his Surgery took a look at it and said that he wasn't very happy about what he saw. He said that he had expected the MRI to look better than it did after all the antibiotics. So after seeing the rash and the new "bruising" symptom along with the fever and vomiting, Dr. Couture decided that they would re-admit him at Brenners for observation.
He was admitted to General PEDs and they immediately started treating him with antibiotics for Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and Meningitis since those are apparently protocol in NC if a patient presents with fever, rash and vomiting. Little did we all know, Tristan had developed a dangerous allergy to 2 of the antibiotic drugs we had been administering to him intravenously at home and now they were giving him small doses of the same antibiotics in a combo type treatment to treat Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and Meningitis. He continued to run a fever and the rash got worse. The doctors at this point ruled out those 2 conditions and stopped those antibiotics. But the fever and rash persisted for a few more days and the "bruising" had gotten worse as well. Because he was vomiting and having a fever of up to 103F at times and in combination of what the neurosurgeon said about the MRI, they decided to treat him as if the original infection had not fully been killed off and just treat the rash with a different allergy medication (since we found out he was allergic to the Benadryl). And they started him back on the iv antibiotic Vancomycin.
Immediately Tristan took a turn for the worse. His fever spiked to 104.8 and the rash became unbearable. Then his skin stopped "blanching" and he convulsed uncontrollably. Soon his blood pressure dropped and they rushed him to the ICU again where they eventually determined that he was severely allergic to the antibiotics and quickly took him off of it. DUH!! I will still never understand why it took them so long to figure out something that was so in their face.
A few days later, Tristan's rash was almost completely healed and he returned home with no further incident. 2 weeks later he went to see the neurosurgeon who removed the pic line. He is back to his normal happy pre-teen self. God is so good!
