Sunday morning, Brooks woke up around 5:00, crying and congested. I
tried to feed him and put him back down, but he was inconsolable. Both
Michael and I tried everything-- from walking with him to playing to
giving him a bath. He was having none of it. It was around 7:30 that I
noticed that he was sucking in air big time, his little chest heaving
and his ribcage showing with each breath. Clearly, I was concerned.
I
popped Brooks in the car and drove over to the Urgent Care. It may be
the only time that I'll be grateful for a screaming baby in the car. As
long as he was crying, I knew he was breathing.
Let
me pause this story to say that I'm still amazed at how little I know. I
was, obviously, really worried about Little Dude (and got more and more
concerned as I drove), but never did I anticipate the following
hospitalization. Sheesh.
Okay, so we get to Urgent
Care, which-- thankfully-- is pretty empty. I walk up to the desk and
say, "Honestly, I just want to see if I need to take this guy to the
ER." They quickly take Brooks back to check him out. They see the
wheezing, look at his tummy sucking in and out, and they tell me that,
sure enough, we'll be heading to the ER. But we'll be doing it in an
ambulance.
The nurses start Brooks on a nebulizer, and
Matt and Eddie, a couple really sweet EMTs, show up a few minutes
later. They lift the bed, me and Brooks up and into the ambulance, and
we head out. Matt gives Brooks a stuffed horse, a Clydesdale who we
name Bud. Eddie tells us not to have too much fun in the back. I think
about how the girls would be really thrilled to be doing everything
that Brooks is getting to do.
My concept of time was
foggy the whole day, but we spent quite a few hours in the ER, Brooks
getting frequent treatments. A respiratory specialist came in with
another guy who was in training. As Mr. Trainee looked at Brooks, the
specialist told him, "See, he's classic." I'm still not sure if I'm
sure what that meant, but I think she was talking about his
"retractions," how he was sucking in the air. But look at this guy--
still smiling!
Brooks was so grateful to be breathing easily that he zonked out during one of his treatments!
I
think it was around noon when we learned that we would be staying at
the hospital for awhile. They had gotten us a bed in Pediatric Short
Stay. The nurse, Rachelle, was sweet and wonderful. However, it was an
extremely short stay for us. We were the only people up there,
so they soon sent down to the main Peds floor. We were getting an
excellent tour of the facility.
On the Peds floor, we
met Pam, our new nurse. And we landed in the room that we would be in
for the next 24 hours or so. Brooks was doing really great. I mean,
really, Big Man was a CHAMP. He was sweet and cooperative and
wonderful. The treatments were really helping him, and I no longer
noticed the wheezing until he started getting close to the next
treatment time. Again, I thought about how Riley and Noelle would envy
their little brother. The Peds floor has a playroom with a train table,
a bazillion other toys, and a giant fish tank, complete with a puffer
fish and multiple "Nemos." :) We snagged some toys for our room.
I'll
fast-forward and tell you that we were there till around 2 on Monday,
when Brooks was able to go 4 hours between treatments without wheezing.
We were on our third nurse at this time, Melissa, who just happens to
be the wife of one of our pastors. Small world! (And a volunteer,
Kaitlyn, goes to Taylor and is good friends with Mike's cousin!)
Basically,
it's not certain he has asthma. There have to be recurrences in order
to establish that. Something obviously didn't sit well with that tiny
respiratory system, and his airways reacted. We don't know exactly what
that was, but if something like this happens again, we'll have to start
looking for a pattern. Right now, we have our own nebulizer, are
praying that he does NOT have asthma, and are thanking God for each tiny
breath.
I'm glad your little guy is doing better!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Laura! Me, too! It's so good to be home and to be more educated... What a whirlwind!
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