We spent 3 hours in the ER last night. Around noon, big brother complained about his jaw hurting. We looked, saw nothing and went on about our day. By 3pm he fell asleep. He woke up at 5:30 and was swollen from behind his left ear to his jaw and in a lot of pain with a decent fever. We began calling the after hours nurse line and they didn't get back to us until after 7.
Well, in the meantime, I went on and did a little google search. Let me tell you that's not a great idea! Within a couple hours, I was convinced he had the mumps! After talking to the nurse, they thought we should head in to the ER. When discharged at 11:30pm (yikes!) we were told his salivary gland was infected due to a virus (NOT MUMPS!) and to give him sour candy (to get his saliva going to pull out the infection).
We stopped at the grocery store and filled up on sour candy and ibuprofen. I felt like a misfit mom- carting my kid into a store in the middle of the night in his pj's and loading him up on sugar! I even found myself explaining myself to the young checkout boy who could really care less!
He slept well, stayed home from school and we finally got him on an antibiotic. The fever is gone, the pain is less and they say he'll be swollen for at least a week. Grateful it's not something worse and I swear not to look up symptoms on the internet anymore...
He wasn't happy about these photos!
Oh boy, poor Big Brother. I've had a blocked salivary gland before but it wasn't painful. It was like a mobile marble on the side of my jaw and neck. I'm glad he's doing better. I completely agree with you about Googling symptoms. BAD IDEA! What a way to make yourself freak out!
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