Long Week!

This week marked Owen's first real sickness and we are all exhausted from it! O started coughing about 10 days ago and we thought it was just a simple cold and didn't think anything of it since he seemed to feel ok. We were so wrong! Sunday a week ago O all of a sudden started coughing really bad and wouldn't eat and was just fussy all day. Again we didn't think too much of it, just a little cold and maybe he's fussy b/c he has been working on his two bottom teeth for the past few weeks. Again very wrong and Sunday was the start to a week home and daily doctor's visits.

O had RSV which lead to a lung infection. RSV can be very serious and babies can end up in the hospital without proper care. We noticed O started wheezing on Sunday night and we were up with him all night, poor boy! Dr. Chris listened to his lungs and heard the wheezing and put O on nebulizer treatments every 4 hours and we went back for a re-check the following day. Tuesday his lungs still sounded about the same and his wheezing sounded better after the treatments so we were told to continue treatments and then to come back for a re-check. Tuesday was about the same as Monday, fussy baby that couldn't eat or sleep b/c he couldn't breathe. Chris and I were completely exhausted and we knew we had a few more days to get through this. We were so worried b/c O wouldn't eat anything. It was a challenge just to get 4-5ozs of milk in him each day and he would not drink pedialite for anything. We watched his diapers and made sure that he wasn't getting dehydrated. Wednesday we had a little scare so we headed back to the doctor. O spiked a fever and was pretty much lifeless. All he wanted to do was sleep but he couldn't do that b/c he couldn't breathe. Finally I got him to sleep in a sitting position and he slept for almost 4 hours straight. When I picked him up after he was like a limp noodle and just nuzzled into my chest and went back to sleep. He was breathing more rapid and his breaths were over 60+ a minute (normal is 20-40) so we went back to the doctor. His lungs sounded about the same but his doctor thought that he was in the peak of the sickness so hopefully the next few days we would see a turn. Thank goodness!

Chris stayed home with O on Thursday and thought he was doing good. He drank close to 15ozs of milk and was somewhat happy. He still had a horrible cough and b/c he has been coughing and crying so much, his throat is hoarse. It's so sad but cute, when he cries it sounds like a squeak. He had an overall good day and we were looking forward to a night of sleep...well maybe a few hours at least. Wrong!!!!!! I was up walking the house with O from 11:45pm to 4am and nothing seemed to help. I was exhausted but whatever I could do to make him feel better was worth it. Finally at 4:30am, after another neb treatment he cried himself to sleep and we got about 2 hours before he got up for the day. We had another doctor's appt that morning (this is now Friday) and his lungs sounded so much better but were not 100%. Dr. Chris said his throat was raw and that he probably just doesn't feel too good but over the weekend we should see a change and if not to call for a re-check. I decided to stay home with Owen on Friday again even though I really needed to go to work but I knew that I needed to be here for him and no matter what, he is more important. Thank goodness my job and co-workers all have young children so were very understanding.

Friday afternoon was a huge turn for Owen. He woke up from a nap smiling...could this really be?? And he was hungry too! We played for the afternoon and he seemed to be feeling better. He went to bed pretty easy last night and we went to bed at 9:30pm to prepare for another night like the rest of the week. He did get up a lot but nothing like earlier this week. And he was hungry! Every time he got up he wanted to eat, so I fed him and he went back to sleep for a few hours. I was so happy to get up with him to eat, I didn't mind at all him waking every 2 hours or so. Reminded me of when he was a newborn. Except he slept more as a newborn than he did this week :) This morning he woke up hungry...this is huge progress! And he has been playing all morning and only gets upset when he coughs but nothing like earlier.

Today, if he seems happy then we are all going to get out of the house for a bit. We have discovered that O gets "cabin fever" if he stays inside for more than a few days and that leads to a super grumpy boy. He loves car rides so we figured maybe we could hit Target and get our errands from last week done :)

So if you are wondering where he got RSV, it's still unclear but Dr. Chris says that most likely he got it from an adult that had a mild case and may have passed it off as just being stuffy. I thought that I may have given it to him since I was sick over Christmas but his doctor said that he would have had it a little sooner. So chances are he came in contact with it the week after Christmas possibly the beginning of last week. We were ready to have a "talk" with daycare b/c we were sure he got it from there. We are still going to talk to them to make sure they are keeping up with washing his hands, cleaning the toys 4 times a day and checking their sick policy to make sure babies are not allowed back sooner than they should be after being sick. But one of the things we liked about Minnieland is that it was soooo clean. I guess we have to realize that babies are going to get sick this time of the year and we'll get through it!

Another thing we discovered this morning is that Owen has cut one of his bottom teeth. So that may have added to him not feeling good. His gums have been white for a few weeks and he has been chewing on everything not to mention the drool. Well this morning we noticed little slits in his gums and when we felt them, there was a little and sharp tooth that had pushed through. Such a big boy now!!