River boy tried to scare this momma half to death last week. About a month ago he had two trips to the ER for bronchial spasms. A couple of nebulizer breathing treatments and some steroids and he was back in action. On Friday last week, he started doing the same wheezing, gasping, heavy breathing thing. The pediatrician had told me the next time it happened to bring him into the office first. So here I was with an out of breath little man Friday morning who didn't sleep all night. Bad mommy moment - I didn't notice his struggle to breathe until the 3rd time he woke up that night. Once I noticed it, I immediately gave him inhaler treatments and his inhaler steroids. He didn't improve during the night, so off to the pecs office we went first thing in the morning.
He sat in the waiting room, waving to everyone else, smiling at a little girl, saying hey to all. Just so happy. I couldn't believe it considering how hard it was for him to breathe. After two nebulizer treatments, which he didn't respond to, the dr sent us to the hospital to be directly admitted. Skip the ER, do not pass go, do not collect $200. Straight to a room. The dr said we'd probably be there for 2-3 days. Oh my heart was breaking.
I threw him in the car. Behind a wall of tears, I drove him over to the hospital. My baby was going to have to be in the hospital for 2-3 days?! I called my husband and mother as I drove. Both were over an hour away. I let the first time mommy panic wash over me while I drove but wasn't going to let River boy see me falter. Thank god for rear facing car seats and good radio tunes.
When we got there a wonderful nurse named Kelly got us into a room and started to get us admitted. I.V.s were started, more breathing treatments were given. Bless his little heart, the I.V. was not a fun time. Having a 16mo attached to an I.V. and not being able to move out of the bed - really no fun. Thankfully the nurse found some toys hidden in the peds nursing station. Side mote -since I only thought we were going to the drs office, I didn't bring any diapers, wipes, his shoes, only had one bottle with me. I was not prepared to be here for 2-3 days. We did have Snoopy, which was a good call.
Within an hour, our room was filled with family members (including 2 nurses), balloons, toys and other distractions. Anything to keep his mind off the stream of nurses and respiratory techs coming in to administer steroids, fluids, breathing treatments, etc. The I.V. alarm kept going off. River boy liked to push the buttons to turn it off. Several hours later, a group (5 to be exact) nurses finally got River boy's I.V. positioned correctly so alarms would cease.
It took all day of medication to finally get his breathing under control. We convinced the nurses to remove the fluids I.V. and just leave his port in. He was still going to need steroids throughout the night but this at least allowed us to get up and out of the hospital bed. Let me just say I was proud of him for being contained on that bed for 10hrs and not completely losing his mind. Now that we were unconnected, we took to the hallways to let loose some of our roid-rage energy. Found a cool fish tank in the nurses station, waved at passerbys, said hey to a handful of people and tried to escape the ward by following a nice looking family.
Cue the happy dance!!
So we are now home. With a personal nebulizer machine, 2 mos worth of steroids, antibiotics and some other medication. This has the potential of being a long lasting ordeal. The final diagnosis was a viral infection but I think there's more to it. I guess only time will tell. Stay tuned, I'm sure there will be another chapter in the great breathing story.
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