Round 3

Crew has been in hospital 3 times since he was born. Although I guess the first one doesn't really count because that's when he was born. But still...

The second time was when he was 10 days old and he had a fever. He had to have an IV and a spinal tap and all sorts of other horrific things and it was just not fun!! After that we made an even bigger effort to try and prevent him from getting sick. At least for the first few months of his life while he is still just little. Plus, with RSV season being so bad, and flu season just starting, we didn't want to take any chances! For the most part things went great after that, but then we got very unlucky while attending a family gathering in February and he ended up catching RSV from a cousin who had it. And since he is still so little, boy, did it hit him hard! It started out with just a dry cough. Then slowly progressed to a more congested cough, sore throat, and runny nose. I took him to the doctor who said it might be early RSV but since it still wasn't too bad, just to keep a close eye on it. Well, less than a day later it was A LOT worse. He was wheezing and coughing and you could tell he was just miserable! He started getting these cough attacks that would really scare us where he wouldn't breathe for a very long time because he was coughing so hard! And every time we tried to suction out his poor little nose, boy did he put up a fight! He would be so exhausted by the end of it that he would just zonk out in our arms immediately afterwards.

By that night, the wheezing was really starting to frighten us, so I called the after hours doctor the first thing the next morning (because it was a Sunday and our regular doctor is only there on weekdays). They scheduled an appointment for that afternoon around 4. That was the soonest appointment they had. By the time 4 rolled around it was worse than ever. We put Crew into his car seat but whether it was the position he was sitting in or just bad timing, he started coughing up a storm worse than we had seen yet. The poor baby was turning purple so I took him out of the car seat and patted him on the back all the while asking Jon to please drive faster. As luck would have it we hit every single red light. And the poor baby choked and coughed all the way down to Provo. We rushed inside the building and, naturally, there was a line in front of us at the reception desk. And boy, did those people take their sweet time!!! When it was finally our turn, the nurse/receptionist took one look at Crew, jumped to her feet and ushered us quickly to the back. I can't remember if there were people in line behind us but if there were, they certainly had to wait for a while because the nurse came right back with us and tested his oxygen levels. She quickly left the room and we heard her tell the doctor "we've got a breather in there..." just he came in and examined Crew himself. He asked if Crew had been exposed to anyone who had been sick recently and we guiltily nodded. We felt like such horrible parents to have let this happen to our baby when it could have so easily been prevented. In our defense, we didn't know. Long story short, he had Crew admitted to the hospital immediately.

 The first thing they did there was put him straight on oxygen. Boy did he hate that, and I don't blame him! No baby should have to wear that annoying tube in their nose!

With all those tubes and monitors constantly getting in his way, and in such an unfamiliar setting, and with nurses and doctors coming in to check on him every half hour, the poor guy was not very happy. We tried to distract him and make him happy...

But in the end he was still sick and still miserable.

And to make matters worse, they sent in a respiratory specialist every few hours to suction out his nose and lungs and he hated that tube going down his throat!! It was pure torture for him and emotional torture for Jon and I.

View from hospital room

They finally let us go home after we had been there about 27 hours. But since his oxygen levels were still low we had to take an oxygen tank with us and keep him on it for the next week and a half.

It was really hard being confined to the Living room for that week and a half since the cord was only so long. Crew got bored, and it drove me insane. Plus he really HATED those oxygen tubes. It was a constant battle every 2 minutes with him rubbing and rubbing at his face and nose and pulling the tubes out! Plus the stickers that held the tubes in place irritated his skin so much you could see the red beneath them. But we are happy to say that he is finally off oxygen! Although the stickers left marks that lasted almost 2 weeks.

And, because our doctor explained that now that he has had RSV, any cold virus he catches now might start up all these RSV symptoms again, we are carefully watching to make sure that we are doing everything we can to prevent him getting sick again until RSV season is over in April!