Nate & Mommy go to the ER

Well, plans for the week drastically changed overnight on Monday.

Monday night is when Nate's fever started. Hovering between 101.5 and 99.5. During that night his breathing was different, a sort of grunt before every exhale. Tuesday morning I went to the clinic and later was advised by one of the nurses that an available Dr. said we should go straight to the ER. 

We were seen quickly at the ER. They were concerned with his grunt breathing, lower oxygen saturation levels, fever and lung issues they could hear by listening.   He got a clinical diagnosis of bronchiolitis. For a regular kid, this may not have been as big an issue, but because of Nate's history, this diagnosis can be severe for any child with heart or lung issues, or if they were born premature.   They were concerned and needed to take more precautions.

They started with a nebulizer (think oxygen mask, but with Epinephrine to try to open up airways) treatment. This reduced some of the grunt breathing temporarily, but increased his heart rate (Nate's heart rate is hight to begin with).  They did this treatment three times in the next 12 hours. Nate didn't like it. Can't blame him! His fever still remained and they continued to try and reduce it. His oxygen levels were also fluctuating between 92 and 96%.  They said we should count on being in for at least 24 hours. 

They were going to move us over to the observation area in the ER (which is just a room with a bunch of bed separated by curtains. When the nurses saw that the ICU was actually empty, they let us use that area instead, and gave us the treatment room that would be used as an isolation room - complete with the big glass sliding doors/walls...and it had a window. Wow, what a difference that made! Although, regardless of where we would have stayed, I was still close to going crazy by the end of the 24 hours!!!

It was a difficult time, as anyone with an infant in the hospital can probably relate to.  Just when I would finally get Nate asleep, there would be a new Dr. in to check on him, or an O2 saturation to check, or meds to take or a temperature to take.  Rest did not come easily during the night, and I was already exhausted from being up most of the previous night at home as well, but God gave just enough energy to get through!

Because bronchiolitis is viral, and can be caused by the RSV virus,  Nate didn't start on any antibiotics initially. By the next morning, because things were not really improving, they did a chest x-ray and blood test. One lung was pretty patchy, so they put him on amoxil, just because they didn't want to take any chances. By noon, his temperature had reduced and his oxygen was at 96%. We got the go ahead to go home by 2:00, as long as we would come in right away, if things got worse again.

So that's it in a nutshell. We're going to lay pretty low for the next few days. Nate and I had a great sleep last night.  It surprised even me, not knowing what to expect.  Thanks to the many prayers, I know!

(Hope you're enjoying the first 2 songs on my playlist....they were Brady's request....seriously!!!!)
Edited March 20/09 :  I was getting a little tired of the Cars song and Copa Cabana, don't tell Brady that I changed them!