Sickness

Our house is finally healthy (knock on some serious wood).  It has been a rough couple of months.  We were already dealing with trying to find a contact that fit (see the last post) and staying on top of the reflux.  Well, Jed starting coughing one Sunday afternoon and it hit him so suddenly and seemed so severe that I took him to the pediatric urgent care.  They diagnosed croup and gave him a dose of steroids.  By Tuesday his eyes were full of green goop, his nose was simply disgusting and his cough was terrible.  So we went to the pediatrician and saw a nurse practictioner.  She diagnosed ear infections and some sort of viral infection, so he started antibiotics.  He was so miserable.  My baby has never felt so bad.

Fast forward to the end of the week.  By Friday Julia is coughing.  So I take her to the pediatrician and she tells me that it is probably a virus and there isn't much we can do.  She said to come back if it gets worse.  Well, by Sunday Julia is screaming all.the.time...  So we go to the nurse practioner (thank goodness our doctor's office has weekend hours!).  She says that the cough is making the reflux worse and there isn't much we can do.  She referred us to a pediatric gastro doc but I really didn't want to put Julia through even more testing and poking if it wasn't necessary.

Well, by Tuesday, I knew something was wrong with my baby. I even texted my good friend who is a nurse and told her:  "Something is wrong with my daughter and someone needs to figure it out."  We saw another nurse practioner since it was her doc's day off.  Julia had lost 6 ounces since Sunday and was on the verge of dehydration.  She wasn't eating because she felt so bad.  The NP sent us to the emergency room as she suspected that Julia had RSV or pertussis.  Both seemed very scary and I was not prepared to be sent to the ER!

To make matters worse, whatever she had seemed to have settled in her phpv eye.  It was all gunky and green.  We took the contact out.

So we went to Mercy Children's and saw a doc in the ER.  My baby had to get an IV, get blood drawn and have swabs taken of her nose and throat.  She started getting fluids while they did a chest xray and ran tests.

The docs came in and said the rapid RSV and influenza tests were negative and she seemed okay so we would be going home.  I had written out the check for the co-pay and was looking forward to going home when I noticed that her oxygen stats were hovering around 88-90.  I didn't realize this wasn't normal.  The alarms had sounded earlier, but no one had come in.  The nurse came in and said that her levels were low and she needed oxygen.  So they put in a nasal cannula and her stats went right up.  But then we were told that she would need to be admitted since she was requiring oxygen.  This is what my baby looked like:

So she was admitted to a room and we began a very long night.  Thankfully my mom and dad picked up Jed and my sister kept him for the night.  Everyone that came in the room had to wear a mask because she was being tested for pertussis.  By later in the evening she was off the oxygen.  It was a long night as she would have horrible coughing fits that caused her to gag and vomit.  I spent most of the night in the recliner holding her so she could sleep.

We were discharged the next day after we found out that she actually had tested positive for RSV.  It was funny.  The nurse came in to do the discharge and suddenly she is wearing a big yellow gown.  James said, "is that for us?"  He was joking around.  But she said, "yes, she has RSV so we have to wear these."  Home we went.  Her cough didn't get any better and she would be awake all night with terrible coughing fits.  Her contact had to stay out for a week while we did antibiotic ointment in her eye.  The next week she spiked a fever of 104 so we headed back to the pediatrician.  She ordered a chest x-ray and we found out Julia had pneumonia.  Thankfully she did not have to be admitted and just needed another round of antibiotics. 

She finally started to feel better even though she developed thrush from the antibiotics.

Now, a few weeks later, the sickness is all behind us. Finally.  It was such a long month.  I was so worried about her not wearing her contact and not being able to patch.  And I just wanted her to get better.  In hindsight - I'm sure what Jed had was RSV, it just isn't as dangerous in toddlers as it is in infants.

Now if we can just make it through the rest of flu season unscathed...