It's all a Blurrrrr!!!!!!

It's a week and that I NEVER, EVER want to relive again.

Well, I saw that J*die (on TLOL) posted a prayer request for *B* last week. Thank you to those that send up prayers for him. They were heard and answered. Any way, he went from what I thought was bad 2wks ago (which wasn't all that bad now that I look back on things), to better, to worse, to knocking on death's door.

The Wed. before T-giving I got him into the Dr. came home with the RSV diagnosis. My poor baby was just having a time of it. We visited family on T-giving day, but I made VERY sure that nobody was sick that he was going to be around and took lots of precautions in germ fighting. Over that weekend he slept alot and his labored breathing seemed to be not so labored any more, and he was only left with a slightly runny nose and a horrible cough. Then Monday night rolled around and he started running a temp and throwing up his bottles. He finally settled in that night and woke up Tues. morning acting fine. So, I thought maybe he had a 24hour bug, and I called his ped. and she thought the same thing, and said she would check on him Wed. morning to see how he was doing and go from there. Fast forward to 9pm Tues. night. He started fussing and crying for no reason, and this continued for an hour with my every attempt at calming him. Finally around 10:15pm he fell asleep eating a bottle, only to wake up out of a dead sleep at 11pm screaming. He then proceeded to throw up the little bit of a bottle I had gotten him to take and then some (mostly bile after this point). He continued to scream, and wouldn't take a bottle or nothing else, and nothing comforted him, plus he was burning up. At 11:26pm I called 9-1-1, b/c DH was at work and something was horribly wrong. While on the phone with the dispatcher *B* quit breathing. I dropped the phone, rubbed his chest and breathed in his mouth and nose. (I was petrified, he was so stiff, and then went to limp, and was a deep red to purple color.) At this point he started to breath again. He gasped for air and was choking. I picked back up the phone and the dispatcher said the ambulance was on it's way, and asked what happened. I told him and he told me to hold *B* on his side, b/c of the gasping. *B* then threw up a bunch of mucus, and there was a knock on the door. It was a police officer, who got there before the EMTs. He took *B* from me and tried to calm him, down but even he couldn't. Then the EMTs were there. They did quick vitals on him in my house, and then I carried him out to the squad. They strapped us on the gurney, and put an oxygen mask on his face. He vomitted up mucus again when they did that, and then instantly he could breath. He calmed down and even started smiling while in the ambulance before we got to the hospital.

Once at the local hospital they kept on the oxygen for a bit, then took it off and he was holding at 97% on his SPO2 stats, so they didn't administer it again. They took him to get a chest x-ray, (which if you've ever had an infant get a chest x-ray you'll know what I'm about to describe) and put him in this device that no lie looked like a Chinese torcher device for a child. It was a plastic table thing, with a hole in the middle, that had a seat like thing like you would see in a walker. On either side of *B* was 2 plastic pieces with half moons cut on each side in the front. He had to be placed on the seat, hands pulled above his head, then these two pieces tightened around him, and his head in the hole that the half moons formed. He screamed. Now tell me does this sound like something that should of been done on a baby who was screaming and quit breathing b/c of it??? I think not, but the Dr. wanted answers and this is all this local hospital is equipt with in means of respiratory issues for children....ugh! So, after that torcher my baby had to endure. The Dr. came in checked over him again, and sent us home with a diagnosis of Respiratory Issues: Resolved. Exact words on discharge paper. I think not!!!

So, Wed. morning rolled around and I had been without sleep that entire night b/c of the ER and every move *B* made I woke up to make sure he was still breathing. He woke up with a horrible rash on his face and neck. And the bottle that he ate first thing he threw it all back up. I called his Ped. and she got us straight in. He had a temp. of 102.2 rectally in her office. She checked his lungs and counted his pulse and respirations. His pulse was over 200, and his repirations were over 80 a minute. During the examine she had to suction out his nose, which made him scream and he quit breathing yet again.....IN HER OFFICE!!! She got him breathing again, and called A*kron C*hildren's H*ospital for a direct admit. He was taken there.

Once there his vitals were taken again. Resp:68 Pulse:191 Temp: 102.9 rectally SPO2:89% on room air. The nurses quickly gowned up, and came in his room. They suctioned out his nose with this long tube thing that went down his throat and gagged him, and got out all the junk. Then gave him Tylenol. They checked his stats again 5-10min after this. Resp:33 Pulse:148 SPO2: 96% on room air. After that he was fussing, b/c he was hungry finally for the first time in 15hrs since, he threw up his morning bottle. He ate that bottle rather slowly. Around 11pm that night the did the first of 2 breathing treatments on him while he was there. After that he slept poorly, and was up about every hour and a half wanting a bottle. Finally around 6am Thurs. morning his fever broke, and he fell fast asleep until 10am when the infectious disease Dr. came in. He checked him all out, and *B* baby jibbered to him while he was in there, and even smiled at him. It was for the first time in over 3 days. The Dr. told me that the mucus test they did on the stuff they suctioned out of his nose when he first arrived for the preliminary RSV and flu virus were negative, but he was testing him for RVI (Respiratory Viral Isola) and that wouldn't be back until later in the day. He told me as long as Brennen kept his bottles down for the next 12hrs, didn't stop breathing between now and then, and his fever gone for 12 hrs from the last temp, that when the results came back we could go home. So, late Thurs. night we were discharged. Diagnosis: RVI (The test came back positive.) The Dr. explained RVI to be the sister virus of RSV. It's just as dangerous to infants and children as RSV, but in different ways then RSV. Plus, it effects the lining of the lungs causing them not to inflate and deflate properly, as where RSV effects the whole lung causing the same.

Since we've came home *B* wants Mama and only Mama. He is doing better, but he's not 100%, and that may still take awhile before he's there. He's not sleeping well. He knows what the nasal syringe is, and upon just seeing it he cries. (Poor little guy.) He still has a horrible cough and a runny nose and watery eyes, but thank heavens no more non-breathing episodes, and no more rapid or labored breathing as well. He went back to the ped. today, and he's a canidate for the RSV/RVI Synigis shot, and he now has to have a home nebulizer and do breathing treatments once a day until he's over this, and then only as needed there on.

I just look back on my baby and him being at my home and stopping breathing, and I Thank God for my calm collective thinking and action, my Nurse's Assistant training and CPR knowledge, and that He didn't decide to take my baby that night. My baby truely is a fighter and a survivor.