I wrote about this in brief, but here is the excessively long version. When we took X to the hospital, JW reviewed my blog archives to get the details about the boys' previous ER visits, so here's another entry for the medical records slash baby book slash journal.
Saturday: K went to a birthday party at an indoor place full of giant inflatable structures. So much yelling and racing around. It reminded me why we will never have another party at home. X continued with his fever and coughing. We decided to drive to NY anyway as planned, en route to our family vacation in DC, because if X was going to be miserable he might as well be miserable on vacation. But we still thought it was just an ordinary bug until we saw how bad he got that night. Between 3 and 6 a.m., I held X and walked continuously around the room while he alternately dozed on my shoulder and coughed himself awake.
Sunday: X's coughing and breathing continued to worsen throughout the day. My sister-in-law suggested that we get a nebulizer, a machine that delivers inhaled breathing treatments. We had been using a spacer (basically an inhaler), but she said this would be more effective. It helped, but not enough. In the evening my brother and JW brought X to the ER where my brother works. I wasn't feeling well myself and was worn out from being up all night, so I stayed home and got some sleep. While in the ER, X got an IV magnesium treatment and was started on a course of steroids. Around 2:30 a.m., my brother texted saying that X had been admitted.
Monday: When I arrived at the hospital in the morning, X was limp in JW's arms. He spent the day sleeping and wheezing for breath while receiving breathing treatments every two hours. By the end of the day he could remain conscious for longer, but still wasn't breathing well. The doctors explained that he had "reactive airway disease" that is triggered by infection. His airways had constricted and were filled with mucus. They explained the warning signs and told us that in the future, if we notice any coughing or even if he just gets sick and doesn't appear to have breathing issues, we should start him on the nebulizer to avoid problems. We asked if this was asthma and they said that asthma has to be diagnosed over multiple occurrences, so technically it's not asthma (but to me it seems like it's basically the same). The doctors also told us they were running a virus panel to see if he had the flu, but didn't have the results yet. While in the hospital, we heard news of the Boston marathon bombing and fielded many emails and calls from friends asking if we were okay. We told some people we were out of town and others that we were not in Boston, but not okay.
Tuesday: X was significantly better, but still needed the treatments every two hours. We talked to my brother, who pushed our doctors for more aggressive treatment since X was recovering so slowly. They added racemic epinephrine and Atravent, both additional inhaled treatments to clear the airways. X improved a lot with the additional treatments, but it was clear we weren't getting out yet. X discovered Thomas the Tank Engine and spent a lot of time watching Thomas videos during his treatments, when he had to sit quietly. He slept a lot and only stayed awake for an hour or two at a time.
Wednesday: Virus panel finally came back. X had the flu and rhinoenterovirus. The doctors thought the combination of viruses might explain the severity of the attack and X's difficulty recovering. Because X had the flu, he had to remain confined in the hospital room and also started taking Tamiflu. My brother convinced them to give X several back-to-back treatments since he still needed the treatment every two hours. He improved significantly and by the end of the day we were able to push the treatments farther apart. At home, Grandma came to visit and spend some time with K.
Thursday: X was much better! He managed to stretch his treatments to four hours apart, which meant they would let us go and continue the treatments with the nebulizer at home. Since he was so much improved, he got really punchy from being confined, and by the end of the day was picking up everything he could and hurling it across the room. He also got several timeouts for hitting and biting. (But that was nothing compared to how many timeouts Elmo got for biting X. X kept sending "Elmo timeout seat!" every few minutes.) By 5 p.m., the paperwork was finally done and we were on our way home. X was fascinated by the fish and the gift shop in the lobby, and had to be dragged out to the parking garage and into the car. We set our alarms to continue giving X treatments every four hours around the clock. K was excited to have us home for more than a few hours -- we had been coming home to put him to bed, and once I came home and took him out to lunch, but mostly we'd both been at the hospital or sleeping. I told him I was sorry his vacation didn't work out, and he said he was disappointed we didn't get to go to DC, but he had enjoyed his time at my parents' house and maybe we could go to DC another time. I had been really cranky and tired before that but I just gave him the biggest hug.
Tuesday: X was sent home with diarrhea.
Wednesday and Thursday: X stayed home. We called a nanny service, which was a lifesaver. On Thursday X seemed back to his normal happy self.
Friday: I could tell when X woke up that something was wrong. He was fussy and refused his breakfast. Being the greatest mom in the world, I took him to daycare anyway and crossed my fingers that he'd make it through the morning because I had several meetings scheduled. He didn't make it an hour. I was in the middle of a phone interview for an in-house job when my cell phone started buzzing with a call from daycare. I barely heard another word the interviewer said and mispronounced the name of the company at the end. To paraphrase Young MC, that's one more job I won't be gittin'. I picked up X and JW came home and spent most of the day with him. X seemed cranky and had a slight fever, but was otherwise OK. At night he woke up coughing. I called my physician brother, who prescribed a steroid that he said would fix the coughing.
Monday: When I arrived at the hospital in the morning, X was limp in JW's arms. He spent the day sleeping and wheezing for breath while receiving breathing treatments every two hours. By the end of the day he could remain conscious for longer, but still wasn't breathing well. The doctors explained that he had "reactive airway disease" that is triggered by infection. His airways had constricted and were filled with mucus. They explained the warning signs and told us that in the future, if we notice any coughing or even if he just gets sick and doesn't appear to have breathing issues, we should start him on the nebulizer to avoid problems. We asked if this was asthma and they said that asthma has to be diagnosed over multiple occurrences, so technically it's not asthma (but to me it seems like it's basically the same). The doctors also told us they were running a virus panel to see if he had the flu, but didn't have the results yet. While in the hospital, we heard news of the Boston marathon bombing and fielded many emails and calls from friends asking if we were okay. We told some people we were out of town and others that we were not in Boston, but not okay.
Friday: X and I hung around at my parents' house while JW and K went to have a boys' day out in NYC. We were happy K got to do something special after hanging around all week. Luckily my niece was also home for most of the week so they could play together. (Unluckily, my sister-in-law caught the flu from X.) K and his cousin, among other things, opened a store. Their store sold notes. The notes said "A swift kick in the butt," or "A quick punch in the butt," or just "Butt." There were a few that said "Boo" to appease the disapproving grownups. The store was called, of course, "Butt Notes," and was located on the top bunk. When I went in K's room at night, there was a sign saying, "The store is closed." But anyway, that day there were no butt notes. They went to the top of the Empire State building, ate lunch out, and visited the Nintendo store, the Lego store, and FAO Schwarz where K bought a Lego set. Meanwhile, X and I spent literally an hour at the end of the driveway watching trucks cart away logs across the street, left over from last fall's hurricane. After sleeping on top of me all week, X was not happy about going back to the Pack and Play. At night after the kids went to bed, we tuned in to the news again to check on the manhunt back home for the bombers. It was surreal to see our suburban neighborhood on national news. Look, there's Ed, our town's police chief. Look, there's the hardware store. Our house was in the perimeter where the police were searching and a neighbor emailed me a picture of the SWAT team in our backyard.
Saturday: X continued to improve. We took the boys to a baby shower for a childhood friend, stopped by Nonna's house in the Bronx (possibly for the last time, since she's planning to move out to an assisted living facility), and arrived home at night. We could tell the police had been in our garage, since a few things had been moved around, and the street a few blocks away where the second bomber was caught was blocked off with traffic cones. Otherwise things seemed normal.
Sunday: So, so, so happy to be home. X was well enough that we backed off the treatments, and had dinner at a friend's house who has kids almost the same age as ours.
Monday: So not happy to be back at work after our decidedly unrelaxing week. My parents came to town to help out for a day or two. K now says he is sick. I think X can be done with the breathing treatments after today and can return to school tomorrow.
It's officially spring, so can we please, please be done with all of the illnesses? This winter has been brutal. At least there shouldn't be any more snowstorms.
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