Night in the ER

Kaleb's cough got worse Saturday night and into Sunday (he was coughing so bad that his mouth turned a bit purple Sunday a.m.). As Sunday went on, his coughing fits became more frequent and had another fit where his mouth turned purple as he was having problems catching his breath, so we called the ambulance (good thing my Mom was here!- I didn't feel comfortable driving him and wanted him to be at the hospital where they could look at him. (The weird thing is that he wouldn't be real stuffy and be coughing all the time...freaked me out though when he was!!).

So, we spent a good 5 hours in the ER last night (and he wasn't coughing TOO bad either)- they have an impressive ER. They did a chest XRAY that was clear; drew blood (he did so good) to check for whooping cough (neg) and strep; and tested for RSV- a respiratory disease- (they stick a swab thing through his nose and down his throat!). We will not know for 7 days if he does have strep, but the results came back positive for RSV. SCARY! He and I almost had to spend the night, but after monitoring his oxygen level and pulse (and the fact that he was eating normally and not lethargic), the DR called 2 other DR's and decided to let us go home. In the back of my mind, I kind of wanted to stay just in case something happened....as it was I got maybe an hours sleep last night because I kept checking him to make sure he was catching his breath. The DR was not happy that our DR had him on antibiotics at such a young age and told us to discontinue treatment (my thought is that my DR is not retarded and wouldn't give him something if he knew it would harm him).

With RSV and Kaleb being so young to take meds to treat the cold, there is not much you can do other than run a humidifier and let the illness run its course. I do know some children that actually require the need for an inhaler or have to go to the hospital for breathing treatments. I am going to follow up with our DR tomorrow to see what we need to do from here (of course they were closed today).

I feel a bit better today and Kaleb seems to too. He isn't coughing as much or as hard; the stuffiness hasn't been that visible either- I was able to suction quite a bit from his nose today, but most of the congestion is in his chest.