I took Wren to the pediatrician this morning and she was not happy to hear even more 'crackling' in his lower right lung area. She did a rapid flu test at her office (it was negative) and sent us to Children's for a chest X-ray.
When we arrived at Children's we were screened at the door asking whether we had fever plus any of a list of symptoms. Of course, Wren DID. Then they became very excited and put us into quarantine with masked staff and no check in. Then a senior nurse came to screen us and asked for Wren's condition and symptoms. I explained what was going on and she left to discuss whether he could have swine flu or was OK, whether a mobile radiology unit could come into the isolation room or he could go to general radiology. I told them about the flu test but that didn't seem to reassure them. I googled it after returning and it seems that the tests are not foolproof:
"For detection of seasonal influenza virus infection, sensitivities of rapid diagnostic tests are approximately 50-70% when compared with viral culture or RT-PCR, and specificities of rapid diagnostic tests for influenza are approximately 90-95%. Sensitivity and specificity of these tests for detection of the novel H1N1 flu virus are unknown."
Novel H1N1 = swine flu.
So, eventually she returned to tell us that they thought Wren was not a flu risk because he wasn't actively coughing and while the fever indicated "something was going on" that the cough was from his last illness. We were left to wait in the radiology waiting room for 30 minutes.
We are waiting to hear what was seen on the X-ray. Wren still has a fever but far lower than the 104F (40 degrees) he had at 3.30am.
Heather, I am going to email you - I don't think we can leave Wren with you tomorrow. Sigh.
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