Saturday, January 1, 2011

We Rang in 2011... ER Style.

Ughhh.  Let me start by saying the emergency room is the last place to be on New Years.

I guess the real story starts a week ago.   My dad came down with some horrible flu.  He ran a fever, stayed in bed for 3 days, and complained... a lot.

We've been smushed in this {quaint} house for a good 10 days now; it was inevitable that the flu would spread.  And it did.

Both of my kids started running low fevers yesterday morning.  No big deal- we alternated motrin and tylenol, and did lots of rocking and walking around.

Last night, when we put Henry down, he was warm- but not crazy hot or anything.  In fact, it was Maeve who was spiking the high fever. 

Around 1 AM, Henry woke up with this horrible sounding wheeze.

Ryan got him a bottle, I held him for a bit.  We laid him back down 20 minutes later or so.  After a few minutes we (Ryan and I) both looked at each other and said (something like) "What's wrong with his breathing?"

We listened to it for about 10 more minutes and decided it was better to be safe than sorry.  It sounded like he was breathing through a straw- wheezing and coughing- and then when he'd start to fuss, it would turn into a bark like noise, with really heavy breathing.

Off to the ER we went.  We left Maeve with my parents so it was just Ryan, Henry and I.

We got triaged and placed in a room right away which I was soooooo thankful for, considering the entire waiting room was filled with loud, obnoxious, barfing drunks.

Henry's oxygen was a little low so they gave him a breathing treatment.  Just a FYI- 1 year olds do not like to have oxygen masks strapped to their faces.

He had a high fever (103) that wasn't going away with motrin, so they did some blood work and a chest x-ray to rule out pneumonia. 

When the doc got in to see us, he was concerned about the buddy's breathing.  He said he was oxygenating well (which is a great thing) but his breathing was too labored to send him home :(.  So we waited, and waited, and waited.

Around 5 AM (or so), the doc ordered a series of shots to help open his airway.  They talked to us about asthma for a bit.  :( :( :(

Around 7 AM, we finally got all the tests back.  Henry has croup and the flu... and probably asthma.  The ER doc didn't diagnose him as an asthmatic, but we have to see Dr. Williams as soon as we get home for an assessment. 

At 10 AM we were FINALLY DISCHARGED.

It was a long, long, long night.

We're home now.  Well, "home" as in, we're at my parents house.  The goal is to keep BOTH kids fevers down.  Henry's on antibiotics and I'm praying Maeve isn't following behind.  Hopefully her flu will just stay the flu, run its course, and be gone. 

-and just a note to my fellow Jacksonians- we're pretty darn lucky when it comes to our emergency room!  Compared to the one we just visited, Allegiance is like a hotel or something. 

Happy 2011, eh?

3 comments:

Angie B said...

aww i am so sorry. praying they both feel better quickly...we went thru that with drew when he had pneumonia- NOT FUN..i feel ya.

Jessy Schoch said...

Poor baby!! Don't stress about asthma too much, Harrison needed breathing treatments everyday in the winter until he was like 4!! Dr. Tim told me if he didn't outgrow his wheeze by then, we would seriously talk asthma!! So hopefully it's just a winter crud thing, and you can join the rest of us in owning a nuebulizer (sp?) :) Hoping those kids of yours get better soon!!!

Allison said...

no fun! Madelyn had croup just last week also. The flu has been going around like crazy through out family too. hope the rest of you stay healthy and hope henry is feeling better soon too!