Visit #1 - Saturday before Christmas, I’d taken Tad into Instacare because he had spots all over his side and thought maybe he was getting pneumonia (he'd been exposed to it a few days before). The red spots ended up being Viral Xantham. The spots are caused when your immune system goes into overdrive, there’s nothing to do for it, they’ll go away. The doctor also told me signs to watch for pneumonia, one of which was the labored breathing and sinking around the collarbone.
Visit #2 - Tuesday before Christmas, Tad complained that there was something in his ear. He finally started crying his pain cry. I took him to the doctor and he had an ear infection. The doctor rated it an 8 out of 10 for how bad it was. And said it was the worst one he’d seen all week. (At least Tad does it right if he does it.)
Visit #3- While we waited at the doctor's, Tad told me he needed to go potty, of course the buzzer saying it was our turn went off as soon as I got him seated - but he went! Dr. Spencer was pretty concerned and wouldn’t really say what he thought it was. He just kept looking at him like he was almost nervous. He debated sending us straight to the hospital, but finally said, “Let’s do a breathing treatment and if that doesn’t help, we’ll send you to the hospital.” What? How did that happen? Right before the nurse came in to do the treatment Tad told me he needed to go potty again. (I'm not a fan of this potty training stuff!)
The breathing treatment helped, and he set up a hope nebulizer. He told me to do treatments every 4 hours, but if I felt like I needed to do them every 2 hours, after a couple of times, take him into the hospital. Tad also still had an ear infection, so we got another dose of amoxicillin.
I had my mom come over and watch him for a little bit while I ran to get groceries and his medicine. The homecare people finally brought us a nebulizer around 7pm. 5 hours after his first treatment. (They didn’t come sooner because they said they were waiting for the doctor to let them know that we were home and could bring it.) Crystal and mom were nervous about his breathing. I did a treatment at 7pm and Tad was still breathing hard. When Fred got home from work, he started timing Tad’s pulse and breaths. After a treatment at 9pm, Fred called the nurse line to see what they thought. We did a treatment at 11pm then drove to McKayDee Hospital.
We were put in a room right away. It was annoying to have to tell “the story” of our day so many times: to the nurse, to the doctor, to the respiratory therapist, to the xray tech, to the resident doctor, to the pediatric nurses, at the same time, I do see the point for some cases that they see.
They put a pulse monitor on his left thumb. He didn’t love it there, but he managed to leave it alone. Even at 12am-2am in the morning Tad is pretty pleasant. He entertained himself and us pretty good as we waited. I was happy with the ER staff. The doctor made sure to stop by often to double check on us as she monitored his breathing and waited for x-rays (negative for pneumonia), but showed Bronchialitis. Bronchitis is generally in your Bronchi that come down from your esophagus. Your Bronchial are the smaller parts that connect to your air sacs (lungs). Bronchialitis is inflammation of your bronchial. It’s often caused by various viruses, including RSV, which is why they get so concerned.
While we waited, Tad colored in a coloring book and looked around the room. Then he asked me for his tools. I told him we didn’t bring his tools. He insisted, so I pretended to reach in his diaper bag and gave them to him. He happily went around the hospital bed “fixing” it. He’d also step on the wheels and say “whoosh” filling them up. :}
The respiratory therapist was impressed that Tad would hold the treatment mask by himself. Several of the hospital workers also commented on how big he is for a 2 year old. Our favorite person was the one that came in and said “They say he’s 2 years old?” then looked back at the paperwork to figure out his age from his birthdate. “He’s not even 2 ½ yet!” Nope, he’s just big. :} After the respiratory therapist gave him a treatment, we waited awhile, then the nurse came in to release us, papers in hand. The doctor came in one last time and saw that something on the monitor had dropped to 89. She was afraid that as he fell asleep it would drop even lower, so she admitted us overnight.
As we waited for them to get paperwork and a room ready, Tad finally started to get grumpy. I can’t blame him, it was 2:30am. He’d tried to suck his thumb to go to sleep, but the monitor was on his left thumb (the only one he sucks). I climbed up on the bed and held him so he’d go to sleep and so I could hold the oxygen up to his mouth.
The resident doctor from the pediatric unit came in and had to do some chart information, then they were ready for us to go upstairs. I moved Tad to the bed so I didn’t have to be rolled through the hospital. The nurse driving the bed was a little crazy in her steering, but we made it without scraping any walls or waking him up.
The worst part was getting settled in his room. The nurses were not very good, maybe they were just overly excited to have something to do in the middle of the night. They made us wake Tad up to get his weight. They couldn’t just take his weight from when we got to the ER. Tad wasn’t happy about being woken up at 3:30am. Inside his room 3 nurses seemed to attack us. Tad continued to cry, almost hysterically, completely unnatural for him. I sat in the bed and held him to try to calm him down. Before I could get him calmed down, one nurse tried to put a nose oxygen tube on him and taped it down (I’d freak out too, if someone tried to tape something to my face). The 2nd nurse was hooking up monitors and moving the pulse monitor to his toe instead of his thumb. And the 3rd nurse was talking over Tad’s crying to give us instructions about the pink wristbands she was putting on our wrists and telling us what codes we needed if we left the area, or called in for information, etc. Tad ripped the oxygen right back off, and eventually settled down as he watched Cars. After he was asleep again, the nurse told us they come in at 6am to do blood work, and they needed to do another breathing treatment. Fred and I shared our displeasure. I also tried to convince them to set up the oxygen now, so that if he needed it during the night it was there and I wouldn’t have to come searching for one of them. They said he could actually drop to 88 and be fine. I was annoyed, but left it alone (the oxygen was there when I woke up). We finally settled into our uncomfortable recliners at 4:30 am. I didn’t sleep well at all, as I was awakened each time a nurse came in to check Tad’s vitals.
The morning nurses were MUCH better. They worked well with Tad and actually listened to Fred and I. Tad still freaked out about the monitor on his toe. He wouldn’t even stand on that leg, like it was broken. :} He had breakfast and watched cartoons, snuggled with Dad and looked out his window. The media trailer for the Ogden Police shot earlier in the week were right below our room. Tad saw the trailer and told me there were horses in there. I told him I didn’t think so. The thing that entertained him the most was the connector for his monitor. It was about 1 in x 2 in. He called it soap and used it to “scruba-dubba” daddy’s face and arms.
The doctor for the day just happened to by mine & Fred’s doctor. Dr. Tensmeyer looked him over - Tad’s gotten really good at lifting his shirt and taking deep breaths. They had told us they’d release us after lunch, but the nurse came in shortly after the doctor with release papers. We opted to go home and get some sleep. Of course they had to wheel him out in a wheelchair.
We hadn’t moved our car from the ER parking so we had to be wheeled out through the ER. There was one lady sitting there, waiting to be checked in, holding a barf bag. I didn’t think too much about it, until we all got the flu the next week. 
After lunch at home, Tad went down for a nap and Fred went into work for a few hours. I don’t know how he did it, I was exhausted. Tad ran around all afternoon, making me even more tired. We ended up giving Tad a treatment that Friday night because he was sounding wheezy, probably from playing so much. He’s been fine since then. Saturday night Tad woke up throwing up. We thought maybe it was just all the medicine and some food he’d eaten. Fred & I hadn’t recovered from our lack of sleep, but stayed up together to manage Tad. He was fine the next day, Sunday we stayed home from church to recover and per the doctor’s suggestion. Monday, Fred and I went to the ranch to go hunting. We took our snowmobiles. One needs a new drive belt, so we rode the other one double. 5 minutes into our ride that one stopped working. We hiked for awhile to look around. I am SO out of shape!!!! We hiked back down to the truck, drove to the snowmobile and loaded it. Our picnic lunch on the back of the trailer in the sunshine was nice. On the way home I started to not feel good. By 6pm I had figured out that Tad had really had the flu, not just indigestion. My dad came over to help Fred give me a blessing. Fred caught it around 1am. Luckily, my parents came to get Tad in the morning so we could spend our lovely 9th anniversary sipping 7up on the couch. Unluckily, they all caught it that night. Tad was spending the night, but they said he was asleep by the time it hit them. Fred calls it the plague- 6 or 7 hours of feeling like you’re going to die & wishing you were going to die, then 1 ½ days of exhaustion.
Wednesday we took Tad to his regular doctor, for a follow-up appointment. The tests they ran in the hospital to see if it was caused by RSV were negative, it was Rhino-? (basically just a strong cold virus that had caused all of our trouble!) The student Physician’s assistant pointed out that all of our trauma had started 6 days ago. Only 6 days? It’s been the longest month of January ever! :} We weren't even 2 weeks into the new year!
