A Yucky Sick Weekend

This weekend has been quite eventful and exhausting for us all. On Friday, I got a call from Matt when I was about 10 minutes away from home. He said Wyatt had a fever and was having some trouble breathing. I told him I would be home soon and to hang tight. As soon as I walked in the door, I heard Wyatt grunting and struggling to breath. We quickly got in the car and headed straight to our doctor's office which is about 3 minutes away if you hit the lights. We started a breathing treatment there, got a blood count, and even a strep test. He responded well after the first breathing treatment, but as we waited on the strep test results he began retracting and working hard to breathe again. Dr. Patton listened and we started another breathing treatment and discussed heading down to Children's.

When we got to Children's they got us back pretty quickly. (This is normal as respiratory distress is very serious is kiddos.) The hospital has been packed lately, so the triage nurse worked very quickly to snag us a private room. (Thanks Gina!) We did another breathing treatment and a chest xray after the resident looked at Wyatt. It helped some, but my biggest concern was this all happened SO quickly, Wyatt was still working so hard to breathe, and at what point would he tire out and quit breathing. The resident was all ready to send us home, until I discussed these issues with him pointing out that Wyatt was audibly wheezing again and still hads significant intercostal & substernal retractions. He consulted with the attending, who came in to see us next. She was great, listening to my concerns, and taking action. We started a continuous nebulizer and crossed our fingers. Wyatt was really getting upset and not liking the way the medicine made him feel. As long as he was sleeping or eating popcilces (thanks erin for getting those) we were in good shape. When he woke up, it was like our baby became possessed. He hated the breathing treatments, but they did help. We spent and hour and a half doing the breathing treatments and an hour and a half watching him. He was much improved, so we did one more breathing treatment then headed home.

Here is sweet Wyatt with intercostal retractions. Of course, they were worse than this pictures shows.

You can kind of see his substernal retractions here under his chin. It was so deeply retracted everytime he would breathe. SCARY!

Wyatt hated the breathing treatments, so when he would sleep we did a much better job getting the medicine in.

On Saturday, we spent every 3 hours doing breathing treatments. As long as Wyatt wasn't too active we did okay. We went to see Dr. Patton to follow up and get a game plan. It was about time for a breathing treatment when we saw him, so he got a good assessment of what was going on. We still weren't sure if Wyatt was getting a pneumonia which caused this or if there was some allergic component involved. Dr. Patton didn't think it was allergic, but also said he was reassured that there was not a pneumonia as there weren't any crackles on his lung exam, just a mild expiratory wheeze. The nebulizer has been our companion through the weekend. At least it is cute, right?
Last night we gave Wyatt a breathing treatment before bed, but within 2 hours he was wheezing again. So, I got up every 1-2 hours and checked on his breathing throughout the night. This morning, after a morning dose, Wyatt perked up considerably. He has been playing and having fun today. We have really been able to space out the treatments only doing 3 today which is great. Here is our little man getting back to his silly self.
By this afternoon, Wyatt is doing SO much better. We really think this is a viral illness and now Matt & I are both coughing, sore throat and feverish. All I can say is. . . Man I am tired and actually thankful this is viral versus allergic. The uncertainty of allergic reactions is a little too much. So, we'll take a virus any day.

Thank you to all the great healthcare providers who took such great care of us this weekend. Thank you Lord for a speedy recovery for Wyatt and just an ED visit instead of a hospitalization or worse. We are hoping after a few more days our life will be back to normal with our family. (Sleep would be great too!)