My poor Colton

I need to get something off my chest today and record it for my future self.  I'm hoping I can look back at this post in a few years and say "thank goodness that's over."  But for today and for right now I just feel the need to record this situation all in one place.  All at the same time.  

If you've followed my blog for the last 3.5 years you may or may not have noticed that Colton gets sick a lot.  I have countless pictures of Colton looking like this: 

The thing is that since Colton was 5 weeks old he has been sick A LOT.  WAAAAY more than my other kids.  

In the first three years of his life he had:

viral meningitis

strep throat at 8 months (apparently babies aren't supposed to get strep throat, the doctor wouldn't even check him at first)

RSV

the RSV wasn't enough to hospitalize him, but it did require over 10 days of breathing treatments, 3 doctor visits, and at least 3 prescriptions

strep throat again- at least 3 more times

ear tubes-- after getting 7 ear infections in 12 months 

and a broken arm, just to make things extra exciting

This list does not include the many, many small viruses that he has had which have given him fevers and caused him to throw up, last spring we paid 7 co-pays on him in 3 months.  I'm not exaggerating when I say we have gone through periods of time with Colton where he has run a fever and thrown up about every 2-3 weeks for months on end.  And when he gets a virus it kind of lingers.  He will throw up one day, skip a day, and then throw up again two days later.  Colton is also my only kid, so far, that runs high fevers when he's sick.  The first fever he ever had was over 103 degrees at 5 weeks old when he had meningitis.  Since then he's run fevers pretty regularly.   Last spring we did have blood drawn so that they could do labs on him to make sure that he didn't have any underlying cause for all his crazy health issues.  He's fine.  Everything was normal.  

Almost a year ago Colton got ear tubes.  Immediately after the ear tubes he got strep throat, but once that cleared up he went 11 months without going to the doctor (except for his broken arm).  He did have 2-3 small viruses in that time period that caused him to throw up, but nothing else.  

In the last month, however, Colton has been to the doctor 3 times.  He had an upper respiratory infection at the beginning of March.  Then at the end of March he spiked a 103 fever and was diagnosed with hand foot and mouth disease.

His 103 fever continued for 5 full days.  I ended up taking him back to the doctor where he was diagnosed with bronchitis-borderline pneumonia- on top of the hand foot and mouth disease.   Thankfully the bronchitis cleared up quickly once he got on antibiotics.  

The amount of anxiety I have over Colton and his crazy health issues is a little out of control.  I think I get more anxious over him because more than once he's had "a big thing".  It isn't just ear infections and stomach bugs.  It's RSV, meningitis, bronchitis, and a broken arm.  I'm very grateful that we have had him tested and we know he doesn't have some underlying issue that's causing his crazy issues.  I also feel so much compassion toward my friends who do have children with chronic health issues.  I just cannot imagine how difficult that must be.  I'm hoping Colton grows out of this some day!