One of Those Weeks!

Ever had one of those weeks?  We have...

All of "the goods"

Wondering what all of the stuff in the picture is?  It's all of "the goods" that we were sent home with over the weekend.  On Wednesday and Thursday of this week, "Little Man" wasn't feeling the best.  Just cold-type symptoms, nothing major.  We kept him home from his childcare facility all day on Wednesday and half a day on Thursday before he said he was feeling better...and we allowed him to go to daycare Thursday afternoon.

On Friday we started noticing a pretty bad sounding cough.  My husband wanted me to take him in to Urgent Care but "Little Man" didn't want to go ("it's just a cough!") and since he seemed to otherwise be okay, I didn't want to take him in either -- I assumed he just had a bad cold and that with the weekend upon us he could rest and be back at it on Monday.  So, against my husband's advice, we stayed home to rest and skipped Urgent Care.  Boy, did we make the wrong decision.  By 2:00 a.m. "Little Man" starting throwing up and continued to throw up all night/morning.  His cough was also sounding much worse.

By about 7:00 a.m. Saturday morning, "Little Man's" breathing seemed labored and shallow.  We had seen these symptoms once before, in 2009, when he had pneumonia.  Watching him struggle to breathe, I abandoned the "No Urgent Care" ("it's just a cold!) line-of-thinking on Saturday and told "Little Man" that he needed to go see a doctor.  He agreed and we left the house around 7:40 a.m. in hopes of being on of the first people at Urgent Care when the opened at 8:00 a.m.

We arrived at Urgent Care about 7:55 a.m. and "Little Man" was the first person to see the Physician's Assistant that was on duty.  The nurse took all of his vitals, then the Physician's Assistant came in to talk to us and do a quick exam.  After the exam he decided that he wanted to measure "Little Man's" oxygen level.  That was the beginning of the end...

"Little Man's" oxygen level was at 89.  It should be closer to 100.

After those results came back, the Physician's Assistant told us that "Little Man" would need to be seen in the Emergency Room and would possibly be admitted to the hospital for observation.  Uggh!!  They immediately put him on oxygen to try to bring his level up and then put him in a wheelchair and carted us off to the ER.  It was, lucky for us, quick work at the ER!   We got right in and as soon as we were in a room the ER staff started to work their magic.

They got "Little Man" out of his clothes and into "hospital wear" and then immediately got him hooked up for continuous monitoring of his pulse, heart rate, oxygen level, temperature, etc.  Next they sent someone down to draw blood.  Then we talked to the doctor and nurse.  They gave "Little Man" something to help him stop throwing up, which was a big relief.

After that they turned on a cartoon to try to keep "Little Man's" mind off of everything that was going on.  It was all a little bit overwhelming for him, so the cartoon was a great distraction.  Then, a respiratory therapist came in to visit and do an evaluation.  After talking to "Little Man" and asking me a bunch of questions he determined that a nebulizer treatment and some steroids were necessary.  After that was done then they sent us down to radiology to take a chest x-ray.

Once we were back in the room, awaiting the results of all of the tests, there was talk of IV fluids.  I knew that wouldn't go over real well...we barely made it past the blood draw.  Since "Little Man" had quit throwing up (finally!) and was able to hold down fluids, I asked if we could hold off on the IV and the doctor agreed that that would be fine for the time being.

Finally the results were back.  "Little Man's" blood counts were fine, but the chest x-ray came back showing pneumonia in his right lower lung.  Luckily, the nebulizer treatment and steroids were doing their thing and his oxygen levels had come back up into the mid-90's.  At that point, they agreed hospitalization would NOT be necessary.  Yeah!!  So, we packed-it-up and headed to Target to up some prescriptions on the way home...an inhaler and some antibiotics.  We were also given a Peak Flow Meter (which measures a person's ability to breathe air out of the lungs...and thus the degree of obstruction in the airway) and asked to start recording "Little Man's" peak flow numbers three times a day.

It is now Sunday night.  "Little Man" slept most of the day Saturday (once we were home from the ER) and slept in pretty late this morning.  He has been lounging around most of the day today.  The bad cough is still there but he is definitely breathing a lot easier than he was yesterday.  He'll be staying home until he is better.  His dad is staying home with him Monday and Tuesday, and then I'll take over on Wednesday.

The respiratory therapist also thought that "Little Man" might possibly have some form of asthma (possibly allergy-induced) and asked that we just keep that in the back of our minds in the future, should something like this happen again.  Since this is now the second time in three years that "Little Man" has had this type of thing happen and been diagnosed with pneumonia, that id definitely something that we will continue to monitor going forward.

It's late Sunday night, the weekend flew by, and the work day is going to come early...I'm signing-off.  (And checking on my little guy before I hit the bed).

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, "Little Man's" dad is also sick.  Sore throat, cough...all stuff we could do without at the moment.  He's managing though -- and I'm hoping by later this week everyone in this household will be back at 100%.