So the story begins Thursday night when Jack comes down in the middle of the night coughing like crazy. We got up early and gave him his inhaler because his breathing was labored(anytime Jack gets a cold he begins to have trouble breathing and needs the inhaler). It seemed to help him and Doug decided to stay home with him, I had been home the day before with Ellie. As the day progressed Jack got worse and his inhaler seemed to help less and less. By the time I got home from work he was struggling to breath and wheezing a lot. Jack asked to go to the dr. so we called and they sent us to urgent care. He was still coughing alot and threw up in the waiting room. The urgent care took his pulse ox and it was in the 80's, at this time I didn't know what that meant. They gave him a nebulizer treatment and breathing was better but still not normal. No chest x-ray or follow up pulse ox. They he prescribed the nebulizer and medication but you can't get one on Friday night. Also gave him straight liquid steroids even though he confirmed that he had been throwing up and sent us on our way. Well in the car he threw up the steroid. I called the advice nurse and spent the night listening to Jack's labored breathing and waiting till morning to call the doctor. In hindsight I should have taken him to the ER but I didn't realize how serious it was, and thought I might be overreacting since the urgent care dr. sent us home. When we went to the dr. Sat. morning he was better than he had been the night before but pulse ox was 87(anything below 90 is bad). They tried more breathing treatments and did a chest x-ray before sending us to the hospital. Jack was sooooo scared and exhausted and sick. He had to get an IV which really scared him, constant monitoring of pulse ox, more breathing treatments and in the evening he needed oxygen. It was a long night. He hated the oxygen and keep ripping it off his face, at one point he tried to rip out his IV. He need treatments every 2 hours so there was no sleep. And he was given quite a bit of steroids which made him extra irritable and emotional. To make the day harder Ellie couldn't come visit, no kids under age 12. She was so nervous. And they were both missing each other. Sunday he was still needing oxygen so no going home, although I could see him getting better. Nana came to visit and delivered a lego set which was a great distraction. Jack had fits of crying and anger and was just really irritated to be stuck in the hospital bed. By the second night he slept through every treatment including the chest percussions. Monday at 3:00 we got to go home. His lungs were checked on Wednesday and they still weren't clear. He is now on a round of antibiotics and then will go back for another check up. Current opinion is he had atypical mycroplasmic pneumonia which triggered an asthma attack. We are still waiting to see what type of preventative medicine he will need throughout the winter and whether he will now be diagnosed with full blown asthma. We are just glad he is doing better and hope we will be able to recognize the symptoms of an asthma attack earlier if it ever happens again. There really is nothing worse than watching your child suffer.
He loved the legos but it also frustrated him because when he couldn't get it just right he got really upset and angry. Lucky mom got to spend about 3 hours on Monday morning fixing it.
But it put the smile on his face that you see in the pictures so I would have worked for 30 hours if I had to.
