December 5, 2011 ~ A Trip to the Hospital

This morning began with a trip to see the pediatrician- well, the nurse practitioner since the doctor was not available in the morning. Billy was very clearly having breathing difficulties and was not a happy camper. Most notably is a condition called tugging. This is wear the infant is breathing so hard that the skin is tugged through the ribs. I noticed it when this all started and knew this was no cold.

She diagnosed him with brochiolitis.

According to Wikipedia:

Bronchiolitis is inflammation of the bronchioles, the smallest air passages of the lungs. It usually occurs in children less than two years of age and presents with coughing, wheezing, and shortness of breath. This inflammation is usually caused by respiratory syncytial virus^[1]. Treatment is typically supportive^[2] but may involve the use of nebulized epinephrine or hypertonic saline.

It is common among infants, only treatable with supportive medicines and in some cases fatal.

They used a nebulizer on him at the doctor's office and that opened up his airways and made his breathing easier. They sent us home with an inhaler containing the same medicine.

After treatment he was a different baby- running everywhere and getting into everything. Fortunately, being able to breath meant he could sleep, so off to nap he went.

Four hours after the original treatment we had to treat him again at home. I had Daddy do it since he has an inhaler for himself. Seems logical to have someone that knows the device use it, right? Again, immediate improvement right after the treatment.

Then Daddy went off to class.

Two hours after treatment he keeled over wheezing and screaming. Per doctor's orders I was to call if the medicine wore off sooner than 4 hours. His regular doctor was on call and recommended a trip to the ER for pulse and to test for RSV.

Here is Billy inbetween tests in the peds ward of the ER. They gave him a gown with koalas flying spaceships. I'm not sure why koalas would want to fly spaceships...

They reconfirmed the original diagnosis and determined that his oxygen levels were ok enough for us to go home. Apparently, the wheezing was our fault, not that we knew it at the time.

Daddy administered the inhaler dosage the same way he administers his own. However, the inhaler with the pediatric chamber is administered another way and, as it turns out, he got half or less than the dose he should have received. I had the nurse in the ER show me how to administer it so that Billy won't have to suffer with the tugging and wheezing.

We are still waiting on some test results, but Billy gets to sleep in his own bed tonight. I am off to his room to keep watch over him tonight.

Tomorrow is supposed to be the worst day of the disease, so let's hope the disease isn't mean to Billy and won't make him suffer more.