Obviously I haven’t had any time to update my blog in a very long time. At the moment, I have about six million things I should be doing, and at least one I’d like to be doing, but I find I’m driven to write instead.
I pointed a friend at my RSV post the other day, and in the process, reread it. I realized it ended prematurely. My daughter did end up in the hospital, which is why I stopped posting to the blog. Once something is stopped, it seems hard to pick up again.
My last blog post was on a Thursday. The follow Sunday morning I slept in. My husband got up with the kids so I could catch up on some sleep. My daughter had gone to bed with a little cough, not promising with RSV in the house. All morning long, while lying in bed, I kept be awoken by the sound of her coughing. Finally, at 10am, I thought, “I have to get up and take her to the ER.” I thought my husband was going to frown at me and tell me I was overreacting. Not that he’s prone to that sort of thing, but I thought it was possible that I was overreacting. I got up, and walked into the living room, which is our children’s play area. He looked at me and said, “you need to call the doctor for Bug.” At this, my heart sank. I was hoping, having been mostly asleep, I was maybe exaggerating in my mind (understandably based on the previous week) how bad she really was. Turns out, she wasn’t eating.
So, I threw some clothes on, packed a diaper bag, expecting for her to be gone at least most of the day, and off to the ER we went. Again.
This time, when they ran the RSV test it came back positive. She still really wasn’t eating. At the time she was four months old, and sleeping through the night. By my calculations that meant she’d eaten about six ounces since 9pm the night before. (We got to the ER at 11am) The ER doctor, the same one who had treated Demon, and remembered us, decided to try a bottle of just Pedialyte. She said it was thinner and easier to get out of the bottle. The problem Bug was having was not that she didn’t WANT to eat, like Demon hadn’t, but that every time she tried to eat she’d start coughing so badly she couldn’t. After a few attempts she’d give up. Which is exactly what you don’t want a four month old baby to do. At that age they are still so little that they really shouldn’t go very long without eating. It lowers their blood super and they just have less and less energy.
She did eat four ounces of Pedialyte, but it took her an entire hour, which was very unlike her. She had always been a good eater, and could suck down four ounces in fifteen minutes on a normal day. The doctor had a breathing specialist come in and give her a nebulizer treatment. He was beyond impressed. She fell asleep about two minutes in. He said he’s never seen a baby do that before, usually they scream the whole time. I told him she was a very calm baby. I wondered though if it was that the treatment helped so much she could breath easier, or if she was just too exhausted from coughing and not eating to stay awake.
The doctor decided, since she was still having so much trouble eating, they should give her IV fluids, and admit her overnight. It took us four hours to get a room. She said there were three babies in front of us, all being admitted with RSV.
While we were waiting, they came down to start and IV on her. She cried, but otherwise was pretty good. This time I pointedly didn’t look at what they were doing, and did fine. She was a total trooper.
Four hours after being told she was being admitted, we got a room. Our floor nurse came in to introduce herself and look Bug over. There is something disconcerting when someone has to put on hazard gear to touch your kid. Gown, booties, hat, mask. Really? It makes sense. They have an entire floor of people, and they don’t want to spread a viral infection. It Doesn’t make it any easier to watch no one touching your kid without several layers in between them and her.
So, it’s about 7/8pm now, and we’re facing a problem. My husband missed so many days of work in the previous two weeks, due to his illness, and our son’s many ER trips, that he can’t take off any more work. He needs the job, we need the money, but, more importantly at the moment, we need the health insurance! After calling every one I can think of who may be able to watch Demon overnight, I’m at a loss and in tears. I don’t want to leave this tiny four month old in the hospital alone. My cousin did offer to take Demon overnight, and take him to daycare with her son in the morning. I was terrifies though that he’s infect the whole daycare. The nurse came in again to talk about something. I told her I may not be able to stay overnight. She told me I couldn’t leave.
I certainly didn’t want to leave my sick child in the hospital alone overnight. That was one of the last things I wanted to do. i also couldn’t leave my two year old alone all day, and I didn’t have anywhere to take him, and my husband couldn’t lose his job, or we couldn’t afford to have sick children in the hospital. The nurse told me they could check on her, every several hours, but they couldn’t really keep an eye on her, and, I know, they wouldn’t feed her. So, I called my mom, who was very sick with our virus, and begged her to watch my two year old at 5am the next morning. She agreed.
I got to spend the night in the hospital with my sick baby. I was relieved, and stressed out. I had spent many night in the hospital when my son was four weeks old. No sleeping happens there. Not for the parents. Plus, I didn’t have anything for the next morning, and I couldn’t leave to go pick anything up. One day I am going to learn to pack several changes of clothing every time I go to the ER, just in case.
Mr Wampus came by that evening with Demon and dropped off some clothes. My darling boy was happy to see me, but not very happy to be in a hospital. (The last time it hadn’t gone to well for him, and that kid has a memory like a steel trap) They brought me some sweats to sleep in, and other small things, you know, like a toothbrush. They also brought me dinner, which was nice, even if it did come from a drive through window.
The visited a little and then left. Demon cried all the way to the car.
After a few hours (at this point I don’t even know, eight or ten hours) of IV antibiotics Bug started eating again. I swaddled her to she wouldn’t bump her IV, and realized that at some point in the last three months she had grown too big to be swaddled in the hospital blankets. We had a rather uneventful night. She slept some, I slept none. She ate a lot. We snuggled quite a bit. I was grateful that my phone had a kindle app on it and so I could read my book while she slept instead of staring at the wall.
Monday morning I went downstairs and got myself coffee and muffins to take back upstairs with me. A very nice woman from the Ronald McDonald house charities came by and brought Bug a mobile. It was a plastic version, with a big panda on the front. Bug spent most of the day smiling and cooing at the panda. Up until then she’s only cooed at mom and dad.
Monday night, around seven of eight, they discharged her. It was uneventful, he case was very mild. (which I attribute to her vaccine) Shortly before they discharged her she developed pink eye. Not surprising since everyone else in the house had already had it. They gave us medicine for that, and sent us home.
Bug continued to cough all week, but it didn’t seem to be getting worse, and it didn’t interfere with her eating. We did take her in for a recheck, and they said she looked good.
The following Thursday night her pink eye came back. She had gross gooey drainage, and they were very red. I gave her the eyedrops again, but this time they didn’t seem to work. Her eye didn’t get worse on Friday, but it didn’t get any better either. It didn’t seem to bother her much. Saturday morning I thought it was getting better, then that afternoon, it suddenly got much worse very quickly. I called the pediatrician’s after hours number, again. The on call doctor yelled at me for not brining her into the office that morning while they were open. He told me if the medicine wasn’t working she could have a secondary eye infection. He told me I had to take her to an Urgent Care, right now, and I had to take her to one that was good with small children. I was brave enough to ask which Urgent care he suggested for small children.
Shortly after getting off the phone, Bug, Demon, Mr Wampus, and I packed into the car and headed out for the Urgent Care, which, luckily, wasn’t too far away. They were also not busy, which was a big plus.
They saw her pretty quickly, and she was diagnosed with severe conjunctivitis, a massive ear infection (even though she had run no fever) and pneumonia. Really? They gave us drops, and antibiotics, we had them filled on the way home. She was pretty happy for someone so sick. Four or Five days into the antibiotics they didn’t seem to be working. I took her into the pediatrician's office, Demon in tow. Her right ear was still infected, and her left ear was now massively infected.
Remember the horrible, awful, painful, shot we had to do for Demon that took two nurses to administer simultaneously because it is so painful? Well, it was Bug’s turn. Poor Demon. Those two nurses walked into the room and both snapped on their gloves and he had an instant panic attack. He started screaming and clawing at the examine room door. Even though I tried to reassure him, it wasn’t for him, he managed to pop the door open and went fleeing down the hall screaming. One of the nurses he ran by said that she would watch him. I could hear, as the door was closing, “Do you like stickers?” and I knew that he was in good hands. Bug weathered her shots well. There were tears, but they cleared up quickly. Demon was returned and we went home again.
Bug improved, Demon was better. Eventually my husband and I improved too, as did my mother and grandfather who we’d made sick. My grandfather spent some time in the hospital for pneumonia, and I felt awful. He weather the storm as well, and was only there a day or two before he got to go home.
