The Steinbach Chronicles: In the Hospital

So, I will start from the beginning...

I have been searching for a sitter to watch Ethan (in-home daycare or regular daycare). I finally found one on Friday August 26th. I was notified I needed to get Ethan's immunization forms (blue and yellow) before he could start. So I decided to schedule an appointment (don't have to pay for the forms if it is during an appointment) to check up on how his breathing was. When we got to the office, we were told he was wheezing a bit and needed to go back on albuterol breathing treatments about twice a day.

Monday night August 29th, Ethan was coughing a lot and still wheezing. Tuesday August 30th, I made Ethan a doctor's appointment with a pediatrician (his pediatrician is off on Tuesdays). When we got there, I was told that he wasn't really wheezing at all, but that he may have croup. He was told to use the nebulizer if we felt it was necessary (I did), and he was given an antibiotic (in case he got a sinus infection) and then a steroid for the cough/croup.

Tuesday evening I gave Ethan his breathing treatment at around 7:30pm. He had moments where he would stop breathing and then start to cry and breath again. I continued to watch him. At 8pm, he was laboring in his breathing and I was not comfortable with waiting until the morning. I left Eric at home with Loryn and took Ethan into the ER. The hospital was so busy. We went right into triage and went back into a room relatively quickly (about 15-20 minutes we waited). Once in the room, they started taking more vitals and started him almost immediately on an albuterol breathing treatment. Ethan had 3 of these almost back to back before the doctor came in. Ethan ended up getting a chest x-ray, blood work, and continuous albuterol treatments. At 11pm, I was told he was being admitted. While we waited for a room, and he had to continue with a few treatments, antibiotics and get his iv moved (he blew out 4 different ivs), it wasn't until 3am when we were finally getting into a room. Then I came to find out he was being moved into the PICU (Pediatric Intensive Care Unit), not the regular pediatric floor.

Once upstairs in the PICU, we found out Ethan's breathing was improving to where he was able to go on breathing treatments every 2 hours instead of continuously. At this point I still hadn't slept and was exhausted. I finally went to sleep at 5am-5:45am. I let the nurse know I needed to get home to get some clothes and get Loryn to daycare.

Eric and I had to explain to Loryn that Ethan was in the hospital. It broke my heart to talk to her about this, especially when she started to cry. I took Loryn to school and let her know Daddy would be picking her up. I then went back to the hospital to wait to hear what was going on. In the hour and a half I was away from Ethan they had sent him back in for x-rays and more lab work. The x-rays showed that he had faint shadows in his lungs which they were calling viral pneumonia (as all lab work showed it wasn't bacterial, so they stopped all antibiotic treatments), Ethan still was on breathing treatments every 2 hours, and steroids every 4 hours. He also was getting his little "beatings" on his chest and back by respiratory to help move things in his chest. I say beatings, but Ethan loved it. Eric stayed with me at the hospital all day on Wednesday and he met with the doctor on duty to review test results and we just kinda waited things out. His breathing treatments were moved to every 4 hours in the mid afternoon. The nurses definitely took care of us, they gave us meal vouchers so we wouldn't have to leave the hospital for food, and they also ordered up food, when we didn't want to leave Ethan.

The nurses Ethan had his first 15 hours in the PICU were so great. The next nurse, the night nurse wasn't my favorite. We were told he would have an ENT consult (Dr. Patel is in the same practice as Eric and Loryn go-all of them go to different doctors). The PICU doctor said that Ethan may have tracheamalacia. On Thursday the wheezing was better, but the congestion was getting worse. Ethan was finally allowed to eat some baby food and that made him happy. The whole time people kept commenting what a happy kid he was. He couldn't breath and he was still playing and smiling at everyone.

We finally got released at 3:15pm from the hospital (only after the hospital nurse made Ethan dr appointments for the next day).

Today, Friday September 2nd we were running around all day at doctor appointments. First thing in the morning Ethan and Loryn went to see their pediatrician. Loryn has had a terrible cough the last few days and we wanted to get her checked out especially with Ethan coming home from the hospital. Loryn has a milder version of what Ethan has and was put on a steroid for the next few days. When the doctor looked at Ethan he asked what happened? He looked and saw he was in the office the same day that he ended up in the hospital and couldn't believe how fast Ethan had spiraled. Ethan is to remain on breathing treatments every 4 hours until he is doing better. He is also on Pulmacort twice a day (about every 12 hours), and on his steroid. We were told it could take 3-4 weeks for him to get better. And once he was better, then he has to stay on the Pulmacort once a day for 6 weeks. We were told he has a 20% chance of ending up back in the hospital due to a relapse and a 20% chance in the future he could end up back in the hospital due to the wheezing. His final diagnosis was respiratory distress due to acute asthma exacerbation from a viral pneumonia. This afternoon he went to the ENT for the consult. He had to get scoped to check for the tracheamalacia. We found out he doesn't have that, but his voice box is red and swollen which is mimicking trachaelmacia. The doctor found that Ethan is allergic to cows milk (or at least his body can't physically process it) which is causing some of his congestion and digestion problems. We have now switched his formula to soy milk to see if it will make a difference. Ethan also has a prescription for food allergy testing to be done. We will get this done sometime in the future if necessary. He has a follow up appointment with the ENT in 5-6 weeks.

We are uncertain if this is related to all the complications he had at birth. We are hoping that he will grow out of this as he gets older. Until then, we just have to be very careful with him when he does get sick as we don't want him to end up in the hospital.