Monday, February 8, 2010

2010What

What a year it has been, and we are less only 6 weeks into it! This year started out with the typical post-holiday blahs. A normal and expected part of life for me at least. Then we went into 2 weeks of solid, almost non-stop rain, and I was reminded how much I am affected by the rain, and not in a good way. Then we had the CRAZIEST week we've had in a long time. Jason was working 14 to 16 hours a day and I was watching 2 to 4 extra kids every single day. By the end of the week, I was a walking zombie, just trying to put one foot in front of the other. The insanity ended last Saturday and then Gabby got a cold, which I quickly caught, gave to James and then Jason. We kept James home from school on Monday because he just wasn't feeling great. He looked really tired and was complaining of a stomach ache, so we kept him home. That night, he had a fever, which he had for most of the following 3 days. Thursday, I called the pediatrician, who told me that if he still had a fever on Friday to bring him in. Friday, his fever was gone, but he just didn't look right and had had a few pulminary retractions (when the skin between your ribs gets sucked in when you breathe) during the night, so I made an appointment anyway. I didn't want to, since our insurance year had started over and with our high deductible, everything for the first $3600 is out of pocket. I had a feeling the doctor would want to do xrays and everything and I didn't want to throw the money away if it wasn't needed. I knew we were heading into the weekend though, so I took him in. They didn't have any slots available, but they said they would squeeze us in around 2:10 and to prepare for a long wait. We got to the office early and waited maybe 15mns or so. Not too terribly long. The nurse examined James, then the doctor came in. She couldn't hear any air movement in his lungs, said he was way too tight and had the nurse give him a nebulizer treatment and then tried again. Still couldn't hear anything. Gave him another treatment. Still nothing. Put him on oxygen to try to get his oxygen sats up. The doc comes back in the room and asks him how he's doing. He's wearing the oxygen mask and says: "Much (breath) better. I'm (breath) great!" She looks at him and says: "No you're not! You wouldn't be talking like that if you were great!" (side note: yes, her bedside manner leaves something to be desired :-).) I ask her if we are heading down the street, since her office is about 4 blocks from the office and she says yes. Amazingly, I was quite calm about it. Maybe James is making me immune to panic. I went in to the office expecting to get a prescription for antibiotics with a pneumonia diagnosis, like in November, but instead we ended up in the hospital for the weekend.
James was admitted immediately, without having to go through the ER thankfully! We walk up to the peds wing and as soon as we walked in, the nurses recognized James and were all excited to see him. I immediately thought that it just doesn't seem right that a bunch of peds nurses in the hospital should recognize my son. There is just something wrong with that picture.
James got a great nurse that day. One who knew how to put in an IV, which she got in on the first try. YAY!!
We stayed in the hospital two nights and were home in time for the super bowl on Sunday. James had a rough night last night, but was doing much better in the morning and has had a great day so far. We now have a nebulizer on hand for him. He was diagnosed with Dual lobe pneumonia with mild asthma. He shouldn't need regular medications, but when he gets sick, he is expected to get sicker than "normal" kids and will likely need to be nebulized.
A friend lost her cousin to complications of pneumonia today. He was in his thirties, with a wife and two kids. When I heard that, I was humbled and so thankful that God has given me another day with my son. I never thought I would have a chronically ill child, and I'm not sure he even counts as "chronically ill", but I have to say that 3 potentially deadly illnesses in 9 months makes me incredibly thankful for what we have. Thank you, Lord, for your goodness!

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