Erik's Cheek...

Whew!  It's been a while since I've posted and I need to get updating on what we have been up to!!  

Right after Thanksgiving we had a little "incident".  This has lasted longer and been a bit more drawn out than I would have ever thought, but I think we're done with it now!  I came downstairs the Monday morning after Thanksgiving.  Erik was sitting in the chair, I walked right past, went to the bathroom and came out.  Looked at him (his left side was facing me) and he goes, did you notice anything on my face? (or something to that effect), I said "no...." then he turned his cheek and I saw this huge red ball like bump, about the size of a golf ball, and then under that, his cheek/jaw as all puffed up, like he had just had his wisdom teeth removed.  I was shocked and asked what happened, to which he replied that the previous night he bent down to pick up Kyler from playing on the floor because it was time to take him to bed, and Kyler didn't want to go to bed, so he flung his head back and nailed Erik in the cheek.  So, we were trying to decided if he should go to the doctor or not.  We decided to give it a couple days and see what it looked like.  Well after a couple days, the swelling in his jaw had gone down, but there was still this red ball looking spot, that was fairly large.  So, by Thursday we decided he should go to the dr.  He went to the dr, and was told they could cut it open, or he could do some warm compresses on it, and if there was an infection that would help bring that to the surface.  Erik decided to do the warm compresses for the time being and see what that did.  It did help the spot go down and it got smaller, but it was still rather large.  

This picture was taken on December 9, almost 2 weeks after it had initially happened.

Erik continued with the warm compresses for a while and things weren't really getting much better.  We decided to wait until after Christmas to go to the dr again.  Which then turned into after the first of the year for our insurance purposes. :)  So, Erik went to the dr again on January 9th; however, this time he saw his actual dr instead of the physician's assistant he had seen the first time.  The dr again gave him a couple options, 1) cut it open and drain it, 2) do nothing, 3) suck it out with a needle (just what you wanted to know right?) :).  Erik chose option #1, to have them slice it open.  Now, I shouldn't use the word slice, because the incision they made is about 2 mm long, not very big at all.  But, yes, they cut it open, and drained it.  See, before Erik got hit, he had this small red spot on his cheek and it's like Kyler's head hit that small spot right on, and we think it was what is called an acne cyst, and that acne cyst burst when Kyler's head hit Erik's cheek, and so the dr. thought if we drained it, that would come out and if there was any infection in there, it would come out too.  They were also going to send the drained stuff to the lab to be tested to see if there were any infections.  It already looked much better when Erik came home from the doctor.  

It doesn't end there though!  On Tuesday afternoon the dr office called and said that they had found some staph infection and that Erik needed to be put on an antibiotic right away.  So Erik went out got his prescription and took a round of antibiotic.  His cheek continued to look better and better as the days went on.   

BUT....about a week or so after Erik's "surgery", we noticed this spot on Norah's thigh.  It looked like a blister had burst open, but it never "blistered" up (if that makes sense).  I continued to watch it, well it scabbed over, and then wasn't really going away.  Then, she started to get more of them, they were on her back, one on her knee, and one on her arm.  We then decided to call the dr about Norah, and made an apt to have her looked at.  She was then put on an antibiotic and given some cream to put on her spots.  What we think happened, is that she picked up Erik's staph.  Quite frequently Norah will come into bed with us in the middle of the night.  Well, since Erik's "wound" was "open" for about 24 hours without him being on an antibiotic, we think that Norah picked it up from sleeping next to him or his pillow.  So, after washing all bedding, pjs, pillows, towels, etc. and Norah being on an antibiotic for a week, plus a cream, we think we are FINALLY done with this all! :)  

Erik's spot doesn't look completely back to normal, but it does look much better!