Another first for K
One that we would have been perfectly happy to skip.
Hospitalization.*
On Sunday morning, K woke up around 2:30 a.m. needing a change. J changed him and was sitting with him to help him fall asleep again. I went in because J hadn't gotten much sleep yet and I figured that I would let him go back to bed. I realized that K was wheezing a bit and sounded congested, and thought that I'd take him downstairs to sit upright for a while.
The wheezing and congestion got worse pretty quickly and by 2:50 a.m., I'd put in a call to our pediatrician's office, which places calls through the local hospital's nurses line. They called back at about 3:10--if they'd taken another 5 minutes, I would have already been getting into the car. The nurse asked a bunch of questions, listened to K breathing over the phone, and asked us to bring him in to the ER. I got dressed and brought him to the children's hospital ER (J stayed home with P).
We were taken back within 20 minutes and they gave him a breathing treatment soon thereafter. His breathing got quite a bit better but not entirely, so then there were some oral steroids. And then another breathing treatment. And then a chest X-ray.
He was still wheezing a bit and wasn't maintaining his oxygen levels above 90% by this point, so they decided to get him on oxygen and admit him. Let me tell you, trying to get a nasal cannula onto a 16 month old and keep it on him is challenging at the best, impossible at the worst! But it brought his oxygen levels right up, thankfully.
We were into a room at around 8 a.m. He stayed on the oxygen and got breathing treatments when he started wheezing, about every 2-3 hours at first, then every 3-4 hours. He was off oxygen and getting treatments every 4 hours by evening; they would have let us go home that night but for our insurance company. They decided that they wouldn't pay for a home nebulizer until Monday. If we left the hospital Sunday, we would have to go home without it and the doctors there weren't comfortable with us doing that.
The insurance company's decision to pay for an extra night in the hospital rather than paying for the nebulizer that day (even though they paid for it yesterday) makes no sense to me. None. But as it turns out, he got a bit worse again that night and we were doing treatments every 2-3 hours and back on oxygen again for the first half of the night.
By late morning, he was off oxygen and maintaining his levels, only getting treatments every 4 hours again, and they said he sounded great and we could go. It was 6 p.m. before I left the hospital, with both K and P in tow--along with a nebulizer, spacer, our bags, and several prescriptions (don't ask how I made it out to the car). What took so long, I have no idea, but we were very glad to finally get home. I have no idea what P was doing in the backseat as we drove but it had K just giggling away--such a sweet sound after a couple of scary days!
We're doing nebulizer treatments every 4 hours right now, and he's still on oral steroids. They're not calling it asthma just yet, as it was only the one episode. For now it's just reactive airway disorder with associated hypoxia. If it keeps happening, it'll be re-classified asthma.
He has absolutely no history of any breathing difficulties, and the doctors at the hospital did annoy me a bit about that. I said that we have a pretty complete medical history on him (as much as could possibly be expected) and there's nothing in there about any breathing trouble, nor has he had any trouble in the month that we've had him home. I kept getting the impression that they thought that we'd been lied to about his history. I'm sure we weren't--I have asthma and it's certainly not something that would have kept us from adopting a child--but the way they kept phrasing things gave me the impression that they didn't believe it.
Anyway, he's home now and doing OK. It was quite scary and exhausting for all of us. J brought P to the hospital on Sunday morning and, as they were walking in, P said "I miss my K." It was a little frightening for him to see his little brother with a tube in his nose, wires on his chest, and another wire on his toe. But we're prepared in case it happens again and, if we're lucky, it won't.**
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*This is exactly a cut-and-paste from my family blog, so if you've already read it there, there's nothing really new except the last paragraph here.
**I apologize for not writing recently. I've been maintaining a "people before things" attitude. I used to get quite a lot of work done while P was in school when I didn't have classes, but now I'm with K during that time. That means that the work (lectures, grading, etc) has to get done after the kids go to bed and blogging***, which used to be done during that time, doesn't get done nearly as often.
***Case in point, my Bloglines says something like 335 new messages. I'm scared of it.
Poor K!
Poor you!
I'm glad he's home and well now.
Posted by: beagle | April 08, 2008 at 11:03 AM
Oh my goodness-what a scare.
Glad he is OK!
Posted by: JJ | April 08, 2008 at 11:07 AM
I'm so sorry! What a scare. Hope it's all sorted out for good soon.
I hate it when Bloglines is backed up like that!
Posted by: Eva | April 08, 2008 at 11:28 AM
That's totally adorable about P saying that about K...sounds like bonding is going well!! :)
Sorry for the scare...hopefully it doesn't happen again!
Posted by: jesspond | April 08, 2008 at 12:26 PM
Poor little K!
I hope it is no serious issue and that he has no or few future problems with breathing.
Posted by: Dr. Grumbles | April 08, 2008 at 01:15 PM
Glad that K is OK now. Maybe it is an allergy induced asthma....regardless, I hope it is the last of it.
Posted by: Dianne | April 08, 2008 at 01:39 PM
I hope the little guy stays breathing clearly. How scary.
Posted by: My Reality | April 08, 2008 at 04:00 PM
Oh my! I just PM'd you on the forum - so sorry I did not read this first!
I hope all is well, but how incredibly scary.
Posted by: Jitters/Enat | April 08, 2008 at 08:02 PM
Oh Erin. How frightening!
Posted by: sky girl | April 09, 2008 at 04:54 AM
I am so glad that baby is doing better --- hugs!
Posted by: Mary | April 09, 2008 at 05:54 AM
Wow! So scary! I'm glad that he's OK now. It has to be allergy-induced. Poor little man.
Posted by: Melody | April 09, 2008 at 06:26 AM
Good grief-- how terrifying for all of you. You must be so relieved that you sat up with him.
It irks me when people get something in their head (ie that you had been lied to regarding his medical history) and then clearly don't believe anything to the contrary. Ugh. Glad everyone is home and well.
Posted by: May | April 09, 2008 at 01:25 PM
Shit, after what we went through last week, I understand how scary this is.
I'm glad K is home all healthy, and I hope this is a one time occurence.
As for the blogging- completely understandable, duh!
Posted by: Ms. C | April 09, 2008 at 05:10 PM
Sounds scary, glad he is ok. And I agree, people over things. By the time I spend time with Caden, do the basic housework and make meals, there is actually very little time for things these days!
Posted by: Krista | April 09, 2008 at 08:32 PM
Glad K seems to have gotten the treatment that he needed. Poor kid. Hopefully, it was a one time deal, but at least you know how to deal with asthma. Hugs.
Posted by: lucky2 | April 11, 2008 at 10:03 AM
Yikes! My now-6YO had an asthma episode out of the blue at 19 months - woke up acting funny, rather sleepy, by the time we got to the ped 3 hours later for a sick visit they sent us straight to the ER, where they kept us overnight. Not quite as spectaular as K, but still very freaky - and also, no family history. Not in my family, not in DH's. So {{{hugs}}} and here's hoping that's the last scary episode you'll have. We've moved up from nebulizer to inhaler, and have used it only ONCE in the past 2+ years.
Posted by: LC | May 01, 2008 at 09:31 AM