The excuse is a really good one this time.
Before I post this entry, I want to assure anyone reading that I and the rest of my family are all perfectly fine now.
Two weeks ago last Friday, I had just gotten back from my lunch break at work when I got a phone call from William's daycare. They said that he seemed sick and fussy and was not eating well, and suggested that I pick him up early. He'd had a mild cold for a few days but seemed to be on the mend, so I figured he was just overtired (having not slept well for a couple of nights before) and would bounce back after an afternoon of cuddling, nursing, and napping on the couch with mama. I wrapped up my work as quickly as I was able, took my time gassing up the car which was dipping below a quarter tank (and oh man was I grateful later on that I decided to do this), and made my way to daycare. When I arrived, the center director met me at the door and said, "are you here to take William to the hospital?" Oh boy.
I learned that the daycare staff were rather more concerned than they had let on over the phone (it's a Spanish immersion daycare and sometimes there is a bit of a language barrier when we're not face to face) since apparently he had been breathing funny all day (he'd seemed perfectly normal that morning). He was napping when I arrived and seemed pretty peaceful, so I decided to take him home and see how he did there, not wanting to overreact. But once we got in the door, William woke up and I could see right away why his teachers had worried. His ribs and throat were sucking in with every rapid breath and when I offered him my breast he just stared at it with a panicked look on his face. I called his doctor, who advised that I should take him directly to the emergency room. We were back in the car less than 5 minutes after getting home.
The worst part of the ordeal was next: trying to get to the ER in the first place. The nurse on the phone recommended that I take him to HCMC, which is technically closest to my house as well as being the hospital where William's doctor has privileges and a level 1 trauma center. If I had been thinking, I would have ignored that part of the advice and just taken him to the different hospital where he was born, since it's only slightly farther away and I could drive there in my sleep. But I was on instruction-following autopilot and I didn't realize until I was already downtown that although I had a good general idea of where HCMC was, I had no idea how to get to its ED through the mess of one-way streets and Friday afternoon traffic. At some point as I was literally driving around in circles, dayzdark called (having received an earlier text message giving him the outline of the situation) and I babbled something out in a blind panic that caused him to leave work as well to come find us. All the while William's breathing was getting more and more raspy in the back seat and I felt like he was deteriorating beyond repair thanks to my own failures. Not a feeling I want to have again.
Finally I found a valet parking area across the street from the ER entrance...with the valet nowhere to be found. I rolled down my window and started shouting for help (since I had to stay with both the baby and the car) and a very kind person (who appeared to be leaving at the end of his shift, which made me appreciate his staying to help even more) went inside and tracked down the valet for me. I thanked him profusely, literally threw money at the valet, left my van with its giant ass hanging halfway out of its spot, and ran across the street with William and hastily grabbed diaper bag in tow. On my way there, no fewer than three people attempted to stop me to exclaim about the total adorableness of my sickly, wheezing baby (and yeah he's pretty great but ARGH NOW'S NOT THE TIME).
We were whisked into the ER by a very calm triage nurse who asked me to recap what had happened and affixed an O2 sat monitor to William's toe. I sneaked a peek at the readout on the screen (bad idea) and just about passed out when I saw that it began with a 7. She still remained totally calm even as we were led back into the ER proper, where an increasingly agitated William was given several nebulizer treatments and fitted with a tiny, scream-provoking oxygen cannula. dayzdark arrived just as a small army of doctors was ordering a chest X-ray for suspected pneumonia. They crammed William in a very undignified manner into a plastic tube to hold him upright, which was still kind of funny in spite of everything else. The whole time he was getting more and more pissed off, but he finally tired himself out to the point where he nursed pretty well for a while and then fell mercifully asleep.
It wouldn't last. The doctors had seen an area on one of William's lungs that looked like borderline pneumonia, so he would be admitted at least overnight for observation and IV antibiotics and fluids as a precaution. That meant starting an IV, which on a 21.5 lb roly-poly 8-month-old is exactly as fun as you can imagine it was. The whole process took about two and a half hours, the involvement of six different medical personnel, and an ultrasound machine. By the end of it, William's arm was soaked in blood and his screaming had worn down to a tiny, defeated whimper. I was asked to hold him through the entire procedure. Understanding my continuing needle phobia, dayzdark volunteered to take over and let me step outside as soon as it became clear that this was going to go on for a while. Despite my flip-flopping stomach, the idea of letting go seemed about as possible as an overnight trip to Mars. (I did not throw up or pass out, though it was a near thing.)
After about 5 hours in the ER we were transported up to William's room on the Pediatrics floor. dayzdark took my poorly parked car home to get food for the both of us and an overnight bag for me, since as milk provider I was going to be in the hospital too as long as William was. (Gratitude is also due to mendeia for bringing him back later so as not to end up with an overabundance of cars downtown again.) dayzdark left around 9 and I was alone with my thoughts, the nurses, and a little boy who was still clearly not doing well. The O2 monitor was still going off at frequent intervals as he screamed and thrashed from the discomfort of an unfamiliar situation, and after nursing in the ER he went back to completely refusing food (though this did not stop him from biting my nipple hard enough to draw blood at one point). I think we both got about 2 hours of sleep all night.
dayzdark returned the next morning and the Peds doctors followed not long thereafter. The tests from the night before had come up negative for all the various types of bacteria, so William could come off the antibiotics (though the fluids and the IV would stay). But with him still needing oxygen and refusing to eat, he would be staying another night. So after I had a shower and some lunch, dayzdark went home again (the hospital room was really not set up to accommodate two adults in anything resembling comfort, and the IV, oxygen, and monitors didn't allow for William to go more than a few feet from his crib) with a promise to return that evening.
William steadily improved over the course of the day. His O2 sat rose to the point where they could shut the oxygen off, and he began to show increased interest in nursing (though this was complicated somewhat by the GIANT BLEEDING OPEN WOUND ON MY BOOB) and in playing with the toys we'd brought him from home. We both even managed to nap for a few hours in there. When dayzdark returned around the dinner hour, he noticed a marked improvement in William, who by then was playing vigorously with his favorite toys as if trying to make up for lost time. dayzdark fed William his beloved sweet potato/mango/millet puree and I stepped out to load up on junk food (the hospital food they gave me was not too bad, but the portions were ridiculously tiny for a nursing mother - half cup of spaghetti and a single meatball, come on! - and I spent most of the weekend ravenously hungry) and then settled in for a second night. William and I both slept about as well as anyone can manage in a hospital when people are coming in at all hours to poke and prod you. The biggest relief was when he was finally deemed to be nursing well enough to shut off the IV fluids and disconnect from the pole, since after how long the IV took to put in I had been living in abject terror of that he would yank the thing out in his flailing and we would have to go through all of it again.
Finally, on Sunday morning, the doctors made their rounds and deemed William well enough to return home. The final diagnosis was viral bronchiolitis caused by an upper respiratory infection - basically, he got a cold and it landed in his lungs, which caused the breathing difficulties. They set him up with a nebulizer for home (which we thankfully haven't really needed to use) and sent us on our way. We followed up with his own doctor later in the week and since then he seems to have made a full recovery.
Meanwhile both of our families were mobilizing. Since it was going to be a short daycare week anyway due to MEA, it was decided to keep William at home for the remaining few days so he could avoid exposure to anything new. My parents kept an eye on him on Monday through Wednesday, and dayzdark's parents arrived on Wednesday evening for a long-planned visit that continued through Monday morning. It was great to see them all and I know they really appreciated the time with their grandson, but a solid week of houseguests following immediately from a 48-hour hospital stay was about all I could handle and I spent last week recovering and getting back into my routine.
In summation, I have ULTRA MEGA BONUS 5000% *EARNED* my trip to Windycon in just under two weeks and feel absolutely no guilt about leaving dayzdark to take care of William alone for two nights while I drink and carouse and make music in Chicago, since he will get to sleep in his own comfortable bed and eat his own food and not obsess over every tiny hitch in babby's breathing while he does it.
Why did I post all of this? I'm not sure. I don't think there's a great lesson or anything all that unique in it, since I am hardly the first or last parent to be by their child's side during a scary health crisis. Maybe it's just to remind myself of how many people William and I had, and have, in our corner - his dada, his grandparents, his godparents and family friends, his loving and attentive daycare providers who noticed the problem before it became really serious, the skilled doctors and nurses at HCMC, even the random strangers on the street who helped me find the ER and park my car. When William needed them, and when I felt helpless to do anything to change the situation, their help was there. For that, I am eternally grateful.
This entry was originally posted at http://gamerchick.dreamwidth.org/611524.html. You can comment on either journal. Number of comments on Dreamwidth:
Two weeks ago last Friday, I had just gotten back from my lunch break at work when I got a phone call from William's daycare. They said that he seemed sick and fussy and was not eating well, and suggested that I pick him up early. He'd had a mild cold for a few days but seemed to be on the mend, so I figured he was just overtired (having not slept well for a couple of nights before) and would bounce back after an afternoon of cuddling, nursing, and napping on the couch with mama. I wrapped up my work as quickly as I was able, took my time gassing up the car which was dipping below a quarter tank (and oh man was I grateful later on that I decided to do this), and made my way to daycare. When I arrived, the center director met me at the door and said, "are you here to take William to the hospital?" Oh boy.
I learned that the daycare staff were rather more concerned than they had let on over the phone (it's a Spanish immersion daycare and sometimes there is a bit of a language barrier when we're not face to face) since apparently he had been breathing funny all day (he'd seemed perfectly normal that morning). He was napping when I arrived and seemed pretty peaceful, so I decided to take him home and see how he did there, not wanting to overreact. But once we got in the door, William woke up and I could see right away why his teachers had worried. His ribs and throat were sucking in with every rapid breath and when I offered him my breast he just stared at it with a panicked look on his face. I called his doctor, who advised that I should take him directly to the emergency room. We were back in the car less than 5 minutes after getting home.
The worst part of the ordeal was next: trying to get to the ER in the first place. The nurse on the phone recommended that I take him to HCMC, which is technically closest to my house as well as being the hospital where William's doctor has privileges and a level 1 trauma center. If I had been thinking, I would have ignored that part of the advice and just taken him to the different hospital where he was born, since it's only slightly farther away and I could drive there in my sleep. But I was on instruction-following autopilot and I didn't realize until I was already downtown that although I had a good general idea of where HCMC was, I had no idea how to get to its ED through the mess of one-way streets and Friday afternoon traffic. At some point as I was literally driving around in circles, dayzdark called (having received an earlier text message giving him the outline of the situation) and I babbled something out in a blind panic that caused him to leave work as well to come find us. All the while William's breathing was getting more and more raspy in the back seat and I felt like he was deteriorating beyond repair thanks to my own failures. Not a feeling I want to have again.
Finally I found a valet parking area across the street from the ER entrance...with the valet nowhere to be found. I rolled down my window and started shouting for help (since I had to stay with both the baby and the car) and a very kind person (who appeared to be leaving at the end of his shift, which made me appreciate his staying to help even more) went inside and tracked down the valet for me. I thanked him profusely, literally threw money at the valet, left my van with its giant ass hanging halfway out of its spot, and ran across the street with William and hastily grabbed diaper bag in tow. On my way there, no fewer than three people attempted to stop me to exclaim about the total adorableness of my sickly, wheezing baby (and yeah he's pretty great but ARGH NOW'S NOT THE TIME).
We were whisked into the ER by a very calm triage nurse who asked me to recap what had happened and affixed an O2 sat monitor to William's toe. I sneaked a peek at the readout on the screen (bad idea) and just about passed out when I saw that it began with a 7. She still remained totally calm even as we were led back into the ER proper, where an increasingly agitated William was given several nebulizer treatments and fitted with a tiny, scream-provoking oxygen cannula. dayzdark arrived just as a small army of doctors was ordering a chest X-ray for suspected pneumonia. They crammed William in a very undignified manner into a plastic tube to hold him upright, which was still kind of funny in spite of everything else. The whole time he was getting more and more pissed off, but he finally tired himself out to the point where he nursed pretty well for a while and then fell mercifully asleep.
It wouldn't last. The doctors had seen an area on one of William's lungs that looked like borderline pneumonia, so he would be admitted at least overnight for observation and IV antibiotics and fluids as a precaution. That meant starting an IV, which on a 21.5 lb roly-poly 8-month-old is exactly as fun as you can imagine it was. The whole process took about two and a half hours, the involvement of six different medical personnel, and an ultrasound machine. By the end of it, William's arm was soaked in blood and his screaming had worn down to a tiny, defeated whimper. I was asked to hold him through the entire procedure. Understanding my continuing needle phobia, dayzdark volunteered to take over and let me step outside as soon as it became clear that this was going to go on for a while. Despite my flip-flopping stomach, the idea of letting go seemed about as possible as an overnight trip to Mars. (I did not throw up or pass out, though it was a near thing.)
After about 5 hours in the ER we were transported up to William's room on the Pediatrics floor. dayzdark took my poorly parked car home to get food for the both of us and an overnight bag for me, since as milk provider I was going to be in the hospital too as long as William was. (Gratitude is also due to mendeia for bringing him back later so as not to end up with an overabundance of cars downtown again.) dayzdark left around 9 and I was alone with my thoughts, the nurses, and a little boy who was still clearly not doing well. The O2 monitor was still going off at frequent intervals as he screamed and thrashed from the discomfort of an unfamiliar situation, and after nursing in the ER he went back to completely refusing food (though this did not stop him from biting my nipple hard enough to draw blood at one point). I think we both got about 2 hours of sleep all night.
dayzdark returned the next morning and the Peds doctors followed not long thereafter. The tests from the night before had come up negative for all the various types of bacteria, so William could come off the antibiotics (though the fluids and the IV would stay). But with him still needing oxygen and refusing to eat, he would be staying another night. So after I had a shower and some lunch, dayzdark went home again (the hospital room was really not set up to accommodate two adults in anything resembling comfort, and the IV, oxygen, and monitors didn't allow for William to go more than a few feet from his crib) with a promise to return that evening.
William steadily improved over the course of the day. His O2 sat rose to the point where they could shut the oxygen off, and he began to show increased interest in nursing (though this was complicated somewhat by the GIANT BLEEDING OPEN WOUND ON MY BOOB) and in playing with the toys we'd brought him from home. We both even managed to nap for a few hours in there. When dayzdark returned around the dinner hour, he noticed a marked improvement in William, who by then was playing vigorously with his favorite toys as if trying to make up for lost time. dayzdark fed William his beloved sweet potato/mango/millet puree and I stepped out to load up on junk food (the hospital food they gave me was not too bad, but the portions were ridiculously tiny for a nursing mother - half cup of spaghetti and a single meatball, come on! - and I spent most of the weekend ravenously hungry) and then settled in for a second night. William and I both slept about as well as anyone can manage in a hospital when people are coming in at all hours to poke and prod you. The biggest relief was when he was finally deemed to be nursing well enough to shut off the IV fluids and disconnect from the pole, since after how long the IV took to put in I had been living in abject terror of that he would yank the thing out in his flailing and we would have to go through all of it again.
Finally, on Sunday morning, the doctors made their rounds and deemed William well enough to return home. The final diagnosis was viral bronchiolitis caused by an upper respiratory infection - basically, he got a cold and it landed in his lungs, which caused the breathing difficulties. They set him up with a nebulizer for home (which we thankfully haven't really needed to use) and sent us on our way. We followed up with his own doctor later in the week and since then he seems to have made a full recovery.
Meanwhile both of our families were mobilizing. Since it was going to be a short daycare week anyway due to MEA, it was decided to keep William at home for the remaining few days so he could avoid exposure to anything new. My parents kept an eye on him on Monday through Wednesday, and dayzdark's parents arrived on Wednesday evening for a long-planned visit that continued through Monday morning. It was great to see them all and I know they really appreciated the time with their grandson, but a solid week of houseguests following immediately from a 48-hour hospital stay was about all I could handle and I spent last week recovering and getting back into my routine.
In summation, I have ULTRA MEGA BONUS 5000% *EARNED* my trip to Windycon in just under two weeks and feel absolutely no guilt about leaving dayzdark to take care of William alone for two nights while I drink and carouse and make music in Chicago, since he will get to sleep in his own comfortable bed and eat his own food and not obsess over every tiny hitch in babby's breathing while he does it.
Why did I post all of this? I'm not sure. I don't think there's a great lesson or anything all that unique in it, since I am hardly the first or last parent to be by their child's side during a scary health crisis. Maybe it's just to remind myself of how many people William and I had, and have, in our corner - his dada, his grandparents, his godparents and family friends, his loving and attentive daycare providers who noticed the problem before it became really serious, the skilled doctors and nurses at HCMC, even the random strangers on the street who helped me find the ER and park my car. When William needed them, and when I felt helpless to do anything to change the situation, their help was there. For that, I am eternally grateful.
This entry was originally posted at http://gamerchick.dreamwidth.org/611524.html. You can comment on either journal. Number of comments on Dreamwidth: