Think It Thursday: What a Week!

From my Facebook wall since it's basically the gist of it...

Sunday Damien started to lose his voice but we didn't think anything of it really. Middle of the night he was a bit warm, coughing a little & breathing a bit heavy. In the morning I called the doctor's office & somehow managed to get him in that afternoon. I gave him some juice, he coughed & started choking/gagging. He did this twice before I called the doctor's office back to ask if the other doctor (not our regular) still had an open appt. He didn't. But we were told to get there as soon as we could & he would squeeze us in. (Thank you Dr. Belardo!)

I thought I was going to have to pull over a few times from Damien choking/gagging again but we made it & went back almost instantly. The nurse & the Dr. were concerned by the way he was breathing. Damien needed immediate treatments & because of our difficult ride up there, they called an ambulance squad to get us there safer.

At the ER, they pointed out how he was breathing, inhaling hard through his nose, lifting his chin to move it through his neck & then puffing his chest to be able to pump it back out. They started treatments almost immediately since his pulse/ox was low (he also had a high pulse & blood pressure). During his 1st treatment he started a croupy cough. So he had croup! But he kept going back to the heavy breathing. The ER Dr. decided he should stay overnight to be on the safe side. He explained that croup is worse at night & for Damien to be in that level of respiratory distress at 11 in the morning couldn't be a good sign. He also explained that he hadn't had the croup cough because he couldn't get a good cough with his airway being compromised to what it was. So my little man was prepped for the worst with a line in had they needed to push meds in him fast & blood work drawn & sent to the lab in case they needed a base to work off of.

We ended up having a pretty uneventful night! Nothing happened. He even kicked the croup cough & now basically has a cold with a wet cough. The most difficult part of our day today before the Dr. was OK for him to leave, was trying to keep him occupied enough so he would quit setting off every alarm that his room had! So as quickly & as hard as it hit him, it's basically all gone now. 

 

Damien & "Josh" (named after Dad). A nurse gave him this bear to take with him up to the peds floor when he was leaving the ER. (She also gave him a food box since he hadn't eaten all day & some Gatorade that tasted like the fruit punch he had been asking me for.)

 I have spent all week spending extra time with Damien & listening very carefully to the way he has been breathing. I have been on my toes, ready to go at the first sign of distress. 

Today was his check up at the Dr. I almost cried. The nurse he had Monday when we went in, told me how her & another nurse lost it & were crying as soon as we left with the EMT's. Our regular Dr. informed us that the other Dr. we saw had him filled in on everything as soon as his feet hit the door of the building. Everyone, including the receptionist, was worried about him. I love our doctor's office! But the child they saw today was not the child who was in on Monday. The child today was the usual crazy, high-fiving, wild child that they're used to. A far cry from the child that struggled to breathe & even speak! 

The latest prognosis: He does have a cold. Which he has shared. With me. But after this week, I'm perfectly fine with that!