Nathan

 

On Monday, I took Samuel and Nathan to the doctor because they had been coughing horribly since Thursday.  Nathan has pretty much been sick the whole month of February!  Anyway, they were checked out but it was just "crud"--nothing specific and their lungs sounded fine.  Monday night, Nathan was up a lot in the night and for long periods of time.  He was extremely fussy, which is very unlike him.  Of course, he had not been doing this before I took him to the doctor.  Great luck.  Tuesday was a continuation of that--sleepy, not eating well, fussy when he was awake, etc.  That evening, I started getting concerned because his cough was sounded really severe.  After supper, I changed his diaper and, on a whim, lifted his sleeper up to check his chest.  Well, even I could tell that he was retracting (which he was not doing at the doctor's office).  So we hurried the other kids up, dropped them off at my parents' house and took Nathan to Urgent Care.

Let me just say that absolutely everyone we encountered through this whole ordeal was so incredibly nice, helpful and compassionate.  Anyway, at Urgent Care, they attempted an oxygen reading.  It was tough because he is so little and they don't have the equipment for someone so small.  They got a reading of 92 but who knows if that was accurate.  They did a couple nebulizer treatments but the dr. told us he didn't think it would help him enough to stop the wheezing and retracting and raise that oxygen so to decide what hospital we wanted to go to.  So we were off to the ER at our hospital of choice. 

Nathan got fed up once we got there and he had to be weighed and all that again.  We had about a half a dozen nurses come in the room with us to help out with everything and to fuss over the baby.  :)  They got him on monitors (his oxygen was 98-100 there), tested him for RSV, took a chest x-ray and poked his heel.  Grandma Barb and Papa Lee came to visit for a bit.  The x-ray techs asked us if this was our 1st child.  We giggled.  No, we said, he's our 4th.  Gasp!  Then they asked if this was our 1st x-ray with a child.  Hysteria started to set in.  No, we've done this quite a bit for many reasons.  Hello?! 4th kid.  :)  Finally, around 9pm, the dr. came in said he was positive for RSV and because he is so young, he would need to be admitted.  I was surprised.  We had to wait quite awhile because 3 other kids had just been sent to Peds from the ER.

They took Nathan and I up in a wheelchair to Peds where my friend Karen was waiting for us.  That was a nice surprise.  I had to leave once they got Nathan settled to go pack bags for the other kids since it was a school day the next day.   Plus, I needed to take my contacts out and all that.  They did let Brian and I both stay in the room so that was great.  When I did this with Hunter (he didn't have RSV, though), only 1 parent was allowed to stay but at least I got a bed.  The sleeping arrangements weren't so great but we didn't get a lot of sleep anyway.

He did great overnight and they kept telling us we could go home in the morning.  Wrong.  The dr. came in and said he needed another treatment because he was wheezing/retracting and now he had double ear infection.  So we waited for the treatment and then for the dr. to come back and check him.  It was a long day waiting but we did enjoy visits from Papa PJ, Aunt Andrea and Pastor Jason.  I should say that Grandma PJ was very busy watching my sick 3-year old.  Poor little boy didn't feel well and didn't have his Mommy.  I did leave to go see him but he slept through my visit.  :(  Anyway, the doctor finally came back and this time, Nathan was just sound asleep and the dr. said it made listening to him easier.  He said he heard a heart murmur and because of his age (again), he would like to get a heart echo.  Was that okay?  Seriously, what are we going to say?  No, we don't care about our kid's heart.  So, we sat there longer and waited for Darth Vader (that's what Brian and I affectionately named him) to come check out Nathan's heart. The echo should have been painless but it was not.  Nathan woke up and fussed and cried and the teenage boy (okay, he was probably older) did his best with his forceful shushing and "calm down, buddy" but it wasn't working.  Thankfully, the nurse (another teen lookalike), got the sugar water out and that helped.  But it took a long time and Nathan was pretty riled up by the time it was done.  But once that was over, we were given our prescription, our nebulizer machine, our antibiotic and our instructions and sent on our way.

Now that we are home, we are super paranoid.  We've been sleeping closer to him and checking on him through the night.  He has been sleeping great at night, which is weird but great.  He has been fussy all day and that makes me tired and stressed but I understand!  He also has been coughing until he throws up, which is fun. We haven't gotten the echo results back but he has a follow up appointment today at our doctor's office. 

*During this whole thing, Nathan really found his voice.  We had never heard him talk so much!  He also has started making the saddest face.  He doesn't cry but he sticks his lower lip out in a pout and just stares at you.  Breaks your heart!*