Last weekend, DJ came down with a mild fever, coughing and a runny nose... no big deal! Right? We gave him Tylenol and watched his temperature all weekend as it hovered between 99 & 101.3... DJ was acting pretty much normal this whole time. On Monday, I called the pediatrician's office just to see what they thought since he had this fever for a few days now. They said to come in later that afternoon to be on the safe side. I put DJ down for a nap before his appointment and his temp was down to 98, again acting normal. I ALMOST cancelled the appointment... but couldn't make up my mind on it so I didn't. When DJ got up from his nap, his temp was back up to 99, so higher, but not super high... still went in for the appointment...
Just 30 minutes later at the Dr's office, DJ starts acting really grouchy (totally uncharacteristic of my happy, smiley little guy), his face was turning really flushed and he got hot all over, was crying. The dr's assistants took DJ's temp and looked at each other with a huge worried look on their faces! :( They said his temp had gone up to 104.1 and we needed to do something fast. The Dr came in and said to give him Motrin NOW and to test him for the flu and for RSV (respiratory something virus). The test results came back negative for the flu, POSITIVE for RSV WITH a double ear infection. :(
They proceded to measure his blood oxygen levels and sure enough, they were super low... as with RSV (for those that don't know) it is like a bad chest cold that you have a hard time breathing and want to cough the gunk out of your lungs, but little babies don't know how to do that... and they are so small, this is actually really serious for them if they don't get enough oxygen. :( They proceded to put him on a respirator treatment similar to asthma patients and re-measured his oxygen levels 15 minutes later... they were back up to 100 after the one treatment!! WAHOO! His temp came down to 102.5. This meant that we could safely go home and not to the hospital!
The Dr sent us home with antibiotics and ear drops for the ear infections, 2 boxes of the albuterol (asthma meds) for the respiratory treatments (and the machine to do it at home)... switching off between Motrin & Tylenol every 4 hours to get the fever down..... WOWEEE.
Now its been a few days and after much worry, puking (and laundry from the puking), loss off appetite & sleep, screaming through the breathing treatments, DJ is doing MUCH better! He is starting to eat better, play normal, his temp has been below 98 for 2 days now! WAHOO... When he breathes, he still sounds like an old man that has been smoking all his life... so we continue the breathing treatments... DJ screamed the whole way through them the first few times, and he fell asleep during one of them yesterday! AMAZING how kids adjust to things in their environment! Whoooooh! ...that was scary!
This same past weekend, DJ's 11 month old cousin Allison in Colordao got really sick and we worried for her! She a VERY ACTIVE 11 month old... but became very weak, lethargic and wasn't eating well. It turns out she had emergency surgery for an intestinal issue. :( She was placed in the newborn intensive care unit thanks to her GREAT DR who pulled some strings so that she would get extra attention! :) She was standing up in her crib pulling all her monitoring wires off her 2 days later... and her Dr said... she must be well enough to go home! She went home and is recovering like nothing happened! WAHOO!! We are soo happy!
