Last Monday, we took Owen in for his two-year old check up with his pediatrician. He weighed in at 28 pounds (50th percentile) and was 34 inches tall (50th percentile). Everything checked out fine, and we ended the appointment with him getting two standard vaccinations. In his right leg, he received a hepatitis shot, and his right leg, he received a pneumococcal vaccine. No biggie, right?
Well, the next day, his nanny called me to tell me that it looked like he had a bug bite on his right thigh. I remembered that it's normal to get some local swelling and bruising from a vaccination shot, so I didn't make too much of it. It was pretty small at lunch time. Well, that night, when we were getting him undressed for the bath, we saw this:
Uh..... yeah, that's not normal. It has grown from the size of a small bug bite to this. Clearly, he was having a severe reaction to the vaccine he had received the day before. Lou looked at me and said, "get dressed", but I was already running to get my shoes on. We loaded up the little guy and headed straight to the ER. Now, this was about 8 pm on a Tuesday night in Savannah. You'd think it would be a relatively slow time in the ER. It wasn't. We saw all walks of life in there, including some very, very interesting people. Let me just say, the last place in the world you want to take your child is to the ER at the city's only public hospital. But, as with nearly every other experience I've ever had with Memorial, they took really good care of us. We only had to wait about ten minutes before we were triaged by the nurse. When she saw his leg, she immediately admitted us to the pediatric ER (which was a hundred times nicer than the general ER).
Multiple doctors and nurses examed Owen. It was everyone's consensus that he had a severe reaction to the vaccine. In fact, the worst reaction they remember at the ER. They suspected that the vaccine itself was contaminated, or the injection given was contaminated, and Owen developed a serious staph infection from it. Although serious, it was something that would likely respond very well to antibiotics, which they prescribed him. But, during this process, new people kept coming into the exam room "to see the leg" as it was the talk of the ER that night.
The next morning, we followed up with his pediatrician, whom we love. He suspected it was not the vaccine itself, but something in the vial or syringe. Regardless, as an adverse reaction, he was required to report it to the FDA and CDC. He agreed with the ER doc's prescription, and sent us on our way.
On day three, it looked like this...
And now, on day 6, it's very nearly gone. Fortunately, Owen was never bothered by it. It's hard to believe, but he had no pain, no fever, and no obvious symptoms, other than a large hematoma. It was, however, a big scare for us!
