Routine

Well, Elias went to the doctor Saturday morning, and Sunday morning, we brought him to the hospital. It wasn’t scary, in fact, it felt pretty routine.

This is not our first run around with Elias having breathing issues. He’s had them literally since birth. It wasn’t that, but his bout with RSV last February that effected today. Well, I don’t think he would have gotten RSV if he was born with fully developed lungs, so indirectly, it’s connected.

After some tests, it wasn’t RSV, it wasn’t croup. It was a viral infection, or otherwise known as a cold. However, once you’ve had RSV, a cold isn’t just a cold. A cold goes straight to your lungs–it attacks your weak spot.

We knew the things to look for to bring Elias in to the hospital, and the doctor reviewed that with us at the clinic. Sunday morning, at about 5:30 am, he started demonstrating some of those signs. He started doing that rapid breathing where you can see it visibly as part of his stomach pulled into his ribs, which showed he was working very very hard to breath. The other sign was the “vocal” breathing. He was doing kinda a grunt when he breathed…similar to how he sounded when he was born. Basically, I think that means he’s very very uncomfortable.

We weren’t scared for him, but we knew he probably needed some nebulizer (I know that’s spelled wrong. I’m too tired to look it up, and spell check isn’t fixing it.) treatments and some oxygen. We knew they’d probably want to observe him. It had about as much drama as a trip to the clinic.

So the doctor said that this will probably happen every year, as he gets colds, and to not be surprised by that. He did add, though, that last year Elias spent 3 days or so in the hospital, and this year it was overnight. Next year he’ll be another year older, another year stronger, etc. However, since he has had RSV, colds will probably always settle into his lungs, and it’s just something we’ll have to deal with.

I do feel a bit silly, though, with how unprepared I was at the hospital. I should have known that they’d keep us overnight, but at 6am, I was thinking that they’d probably just observe him during the day. I had no change of clothes, no toiletries, etc. I didn’t bring any knitting along because I didn’t feel right about making stuff for other people’s babies around my sick kid, and shouldn’t I be taking care of my sick kid and not knitting anyway?

So Knut and I spent most of Sunday together with him in the hospital. It was so nice having Knut there to tag team with. He was cranky, as he barely got any sleep all day, and it took a lot out of each of us, I think, to keep him comfortable.

On a side note, while I see a place for hospital rules, and I love the hospital we go to, and I was pleased with all of our nurses, I hate “the way of hospitals”.

You see, my poor baby had a terrible night of sleep, and came in there feeling exhausted. As soon as we got him down for his morning nap, which is no easy task in a hospital, he was woken up because his oxygen saturation level would dip on the monitor (very often because his toe that the monitor was on would twitch as he fell asleep, sending off loud beeping that would wake him up.) I HATE monitors. I see their use, but I’ll admit: I despise them.

His morning nap which is usually about an hour or more at home, was about 10 minutes in the hospital. His afternoon nap, which is usually longer than the morning nap, didn’t really happen. he almost fell asleep about 24 times, but was always woken up by someone in the room. He wasn’t allowed any milk either, because that would lead to more phlegm. So the only comfort he gets at home, was taken away. On the upside, though, the hospital weaned him off the bottle for us. Cold turkey. (He refused any other liquid from the bottle, but finally took some juice from a cup.)

So by the time his usual bedtime at night came around, I talked with the nurse and asked if they needed to see him for anything else, and she assured me he was fully free to fall asleep without interruption. It took me 50 minutes, of singing, holding, rubbing, and humming in a dark room before he gave in. No more than 3 minutes later, the nurse came in, with fear in her eyes, saying the doctor had ordered some blood tests, and she needed to wake him and take him to the lab. Seriously, I almost punched this sweet lady.

Afterward, the doctor personally came and apologized, saying that some drugs he got in the emergency room would have tainted the tests, which is why he needed to wait so long to order the blood draw. He was very nice about it. As the nurse brought him back to the room, she gave me a parting gift: She did a quick vital check, and then turned off his monitor. She said she’d come in every hour or so to do a quick oxygen check (which can be done without waking him), and we’d keep his oxygen on, but she didn’t want anything to get in the way of his sleeping.

So Elias got a great night of sleep, but still woke up pretty cranky, and was giving everyone dirty looks. His appetite did return, though, and he got more active, and silly as the day went on. After he had a successful afternoon nap with no oxygen, they discharged us.

So, I found out that I can now set up the tiny little recliner/bed in the hospital without the nurses help anymore. I know pretty well how many of those thin blankets I need to get to sleep, and I don’t stress out about asking questions or voicing my opinion to nurses as to what I think should be done. I found out some nurses will jump to medications when his numbers dropped, and other nurses would simply reposition him, and use other non-medicinal tricks (which was usually the older nurses who weren’t afraid to challenge him). It was so interesting to watch.

Anyway, that’s the update. Knut’s mom took David today, and Silje went to school (although we did forget to send snacks to her class today. Fortunately her teacher covered for us.)

I’m going to work really really hard and having a non-health related blog post in the future!