Don't Feed Me

As I mentioned before, on Mothers' Day weekend we had a crowd of family here to celebrate the arrival of Isaac. It was quite a busy weekend and Jack was coming off of 3 busy weeks of having various family members here. I don't know if it was the sudden onset of spring allergies or the general lack of rest, but Jack came down with a serious cold on Friday. As the afternoon wore on I noticed that he looked more tired than usual and then I realized he also had a fever.

With the onset of the fever we decided that he would have to sleep in our bedroom instead of with his cousins and that we needed to try to implement some degree of quarantine – easier said than done. The best solution we had was to tell Jack he could only touch Isaac's feet and to not get near his face, and to not get too close to his cousins. Washing hands became mandatory as did coughing into his arm. We also tried to get him to rest, but that was an uphill battle.

Jack's fever broke shortly after we administered Tylenol and put him to bed. The mama in me is always a little nervous when my baby(ies) get sick. When I woke around 2am to nurse Isaac, I noticed that Jack had pretty labored breathing. As I finished with Isaac, Jack sat up on his pallet and started wheezing. I immediately woke Daniel up and then checked Jack to make sure he was doing ok. He had a fever again and said that it was hard to breathe. 

Daniel and I agreed that we didn't want to mess with breathing issues, so we gave Jack more Tylenol and then Daniel took Jack to the ER. By the time they arrived at the ER, Jack's fever had broke (thank you Tylenol) and the cool night air had helped his breathing. The doctor at the ER told Daniel that Jack basically had a cold. Thanks doc! Needless to say, Daniel and I got very little sleep that night and our house full of people were none the wiser.

The next morning Daniel and I slept in, but Jack was feeling better so he and joined the rest of the family for breakfast. Later that morning when I finally got up, my mom mentioned that they hadn't fed Jack anything. I asked why and she said that Jack was wearing a sticker that said not to feed him.

Then my sister then walked up and mentioned that Jack had told them he had been to the hospital but no one believed him (they thought he was talking about the hospital for Isaac's birth)! I was able to verify the hospital trip and get Jack some breakfast. Who would have guessed that a sticker would cause such confusion?!

"Wasn't sure if my sis was trying to mess with us, or if I should actually believe my nephew's sticker he appeared with this morning. Don't feed him....Turns out he went to the hospital in the middle of the night for a bad cough/breathing trouble, but was fine." #youdontseethateveryday

Firsts

Some firsts are good. Like your first bath or your first ride on a four wheeler. Other firsts are not so fun. Like getting your first tooth or getting sick for the first time.

Jack is currently experiencing his first bout of sickness. Definitely not fun. For him or me. It doesn't help that I am also sick {and probably passed it along to him}.

Since both of us appear to have colds – clear snot and no fevers. I have been letting Jack ride it out. Yesterday {day 3} his little cough worsened so I called our PED and made an appointment to have him looked at. Her first concern was that RSV is going around and she wanted to have labs run on him to make sure the little rattle in his chest wasn't something worse than the common cold.

We live in a small town. Thankfully we have a PED we really love. However, to get labs run, she had to send us to the hospital. 

The hospital, people!!!

It felt so weird to drive over and "admit" my little one to a hospital. The admissions lady asked me if I would be okay with people calling on Jack while he was there... cue silence...  

"I thought I was just here for labs... he isn't stay here, right???"

Thankfully this question was just routine and she put my fears to rest {for then} and sent me upstairs to a nurses station.

I got to the nurse's station, looked around and asked if this is where I go to get lab work done. It was. The nurse proceeded to put us in a hospital room {granted there was no bed, but it was still weird}.

Then I sat there while she went to get another nurse who could help "hold Jack down." While she was gone I started to get nervous. No one had mentioned what they would be doing to him. In my mind I started thinking about lab work I have had done and it generally involves drawing blood. I was worried for my little boy – especially because even if he did have RSV, unless it got really bad, there would be nothing that we could do for him...

So I held Jack and talked to him while we waited. Finally another nurse came in and had me hold Jack while she ran the test. Thankfully it only involved shooting saline up his nose and sucking it out. He did not like this one little bit, but it probably helped to clear his sinuses out. When they were done I nursed him and then we headed home.

Later that day our PED's office called with the lab results. They were negative. They called again this morning to see how he was doing. He slept well last night, but that cough is still bothering him. I will continue to keep an eye on him to make sure he doesn't get any worse.

Just another small town experience. Hopefully we won't be going to the hospital "for real" any time soon ever.