Last Week

Last week, Will was very sick. On Sunday night (Dec. 12), he started acting sick again. I figured it was just a cold or something similar that he caught at daycare or nursery. Monday when we got up I decided he was not well enough to go to daycare so Clay stayed home with him and took him to the doctor. The doctor checked him out and told us that he was sure that it was bronchiolitis. Dr. R said that he probably never got completely over when he had it after Thanksgiving and then went back to daycare and caught a bug that triggered it again. They gave Will a breathing treatment and sent him home and told us to wait it out. He told Clay that if Will wasn't running a fever and felt better that we could take him back to daycare on Wednesday.

I decided to stay home with him on Tuesday and that is when things got worse. All day Tuesday, Will ran a semi-high fever (between 101 and 103) all day. I kept him medicated on Tylenol and Motrin to try and bring it down. He took two 3 hour naps which was very unlike him. At his afternoon nap when he hit the 3 hour mark I decided to go wake him up because he I wanted him to sleep at night. When I went to get him, his breathing was very labored and he felt warm. I took his temp and it was 105.4! I freaked out. I ran a lukewarm bath and gave him some more Tylenol to try to break his fever. The whole time he was in the bath, he was acting so pitiful that I took him out. I went and laid him on the floor to put a diaper on, and that is when I realized things were pretty serious.

He was breathing rapidly and I could count his ribs when he took a breath. He was really lethargic and was not interacting with me at all. I called Clay and told him we needed to go to the ER. I called my dad and brother and they came over to help me get Will ready. I told them that I thought Will looked grayish around his mouth and eyes. I thought I was seeing things and projecting symptoms that I read online. (John told me later that they thought Will look grayish too, but they didn't want me to panic so they just helped me get ready quickly and assured me the ER is where we needed to be.) Scary!!!

Clay pulled in the driveway moments later and we headed to Children’s. Will was seen almost immediately and taken back to a room. They checked his oxygen levels. His levels were in the high 80s and low 90s, which they said was good and expected. He still had a pretty high temp, so they gave him some more medicine to help with that. He was taking around 60 breaths per minute (normal is 40-45 breaths per minute), so they weren't happy with that. They did a chest x-ray to make sure it wasn't pneumonia and we did another breathing treatment. We discussed having him admitted to be monitored but the doctor said as long as he would still take a bottle that we could just monitor him at home. If he stopped eating we were supposed to take him back, but thankfully it never came to that. Our doctor assured us it was still the bronchiolitis and we were probably at the peak of his illness. She also said that his oxygen stats were good. She told us that he was probably lethargic from his temp being so high and his labored breathing.

We took him home and I took the rest of the week off to be with him. He was still breathing hard for a couple of days and had a low-mid high fever. He got gradually better as the week progressed and was back to his old self by Friday night. The doctor said he would probably have a lingering cough but other than that he is healthy. I just hope he doesn't catch something else before Christmas.

It was very scary for me on Tuesday, but I am so thankful to the staff at Children's for being so quick to respond to his illness and reassure me that we were doing all the right things. I didn't want to be "that" mom that takes her kid to the ER every other second, but the doctor assured me that his symptoms were real and I acted appropriately :). I am glad that ordeal is over!

I will be back soon with some posts about Christmas. We had three Christmas events over the weekend!!!