I took Sam to the doctor with classic croup symptons on Monday, January 30. The nurse gave us a prescription for steroids and told us to continue to do the steamy shower thing. He got worse and by Wednesday he wasn't playing or eating much, so I took him back in. When we got to the office, he had his head on my shoulder and was grunting with each breathe. This got the entire pediatrician office VERY excited, and the next thing I knew Sam had an oxygen mask on, 3 doctors and 2 nurses jumping all over the place. He wasn't wheezing....he was "crackling" which, for the record, is not a good thing. The doc diagnosed him with rsv pneumonia and they called 911 to get an ambulance to take him across the street to the hospital. They didn't want him to go without the oxygen mask for any amount of time. He wasn't keeping his oxygen numbers above 85 with 4 liters of oxygen on his face, so they didn't want to risk the time it would take to register him the long way. It was very exciting!
We got to our room and they hooked him up to the chest monitors and got the pulse-ox thingy on his finger. Then we had to go get his IV in which was a long and painful process. Then he had to get chest x-rays. It was intense. They told us to expect to stay 5 days, but he responded well to the oxygen and we only bunked together for about 48 hours. I had to sleep with him the first night and hold the mask on his face. He was so fatigued, he didn't really fight it much, but he did get upset a few times and try to pull it off, or grab the elastic and tighten too much to his face. We were in an isolation room, so every time a nurse or doctor came in, they had to wear a mask. The food people couldn't even bring me my food...the nurse had to bring it in. RSV is a nasty little virus that can really get the babies down, especially if they were preemies or had breathing issues (like Sam) at birth.
We went in for our check-up last week, and his doctor told me it was the worst case of rsv they had seen this season (wow, what an honor....) and he didn't say anything the night he was admitted, but he was surprised that Sam didn't end up on a respirator the first night. We have a tough little boy!
