A trip to the hospital, take 2...

Sorry, this is a novel... I didn't intend it to be.

2 1/2 weeks after our fabulous stay at North Central Baptist Hospital, we took a trip to their Pediatric ER. It seems that there were quite a few sick kids in San Antonio yesterday. There was a waiting list at the ask a nurse line, the after hours clinic was busy, and the waiting room at the ER was full. Of course, Alex had to get sick again.

He started with a runny nose Sunday with a little bit of a cough. Monday he added a fever and started breathing fast. Monday night when we counted respirations he was taking more than 90 breaths in one minute. For those of you that don't know, that is REALLY FAST!!! We have been told before that if they are breathing at 60 breaths/minute the doctor needs to see him. Because of the fever he was pretty mellow, but other than that looked and sounded fine. No wheezing; no retraction (when their chest sucks in, right below their rib cage, with each breath; and his coloring was all normal.

My dilema: First: I know the fast breathing is bad, but without the other signs I wasn't sure if he really needed to be seen. Second: We have a stash of medicines for breathing treatments at home, thanks to our last episode and hospital stay. They will just do one of those at the hospital, should I do one at home and see what happens? Third: Our insurance is changing Jan. 1st and will be 100% coverage for in hospital... why did all this happen (both times) weeks and days before the better coverage starts.

I called the doctors office which now has later hours, but they must have been closed yesterday. I called the nurses line, and was put on the waiting list. I called the after hours clinic, but the doctors and nurses are too busy to talk to me on the phone... they are jam packed! We called our friend Mark (who is a family practice doctor at Luke AFB in Phoenix) at home, on his cell phone, and on his wife's cell phone... with no answer on any of them. I'm thinking about who else I might call... my brother-in-law Ken, not quite a doctor (3rd yr med student); my brother Kerry, not yet a PA (1st yr student); Kerry's wife Michelle, not yet a pharmacist (1 semester in)... Oh, well they will all be helpful when I have questions in a little while.

The nurse calls back and tells me that we have to take Alex to the ER. They will want to check his oxygen level to make sure he is getting enough, and will want to do a chest x-ray and see if anything is going on there. Great, here goes again! I call my VT and good friend and see if Aaron and Aimee can come over (it's about 6:30 pm) and talk to her husband. He says bring them over and they can spend the night. It's so nice to have great friends! Dinner was just about ready, so we set the crockpot to "keep warm" and stopped at Mickey D's for a couple of Happy Meals on the way.

Once at the hospital we had a wait to see the triage nurse, but thanks to the rate of Alex's breathing we got to go straight back to a room. His oxygen level, which the nurse said was a worry, was 99%. No problem there. Lungs mostly clear, a tiny bit of crackling on one side, not much to indicate anything. Chest x-rays, exactly the same as 2 1/2 weeks ago with a little bit of pneumonia on the right side (the 2nd dr. said that it take 4-6 weeks to clear up, so that is normal...). Nothing to really indicate why he is breathing so fast. They did a breathing treatment, not much immediate change in his breathing rate. They ordered blood tests... the nurse came in to do an IV, in case of later IV meds, fluids, etc. She was able to get the blood she needed, but the IV wasn't able to stay in thanks to Alex's fighting. There is a reason his nickname is "Squirmy."

The blood tests came back indicating that he was dehydrated. After many, many attempts to get him to drink anything, and even eat a popsicle failed, the nurse came in to try another IV. It took 4 adults holding him down and 3 more trys to finally get an IV in. The nurse felt SO bad, and so did all the other nurses and techs that had try to help hold him. He did score a stuffed dog though!

After hours of sitting in the room and getting his fluids, Alex's 2nd dr came in (shift change.) Alex was still breathing too fast, but everything else looked ok, so he gave us the choice. Did we want to have him admitted, or did we feel comfortable enough to take him home and continue with the breathing treatments there. Having just done this (and doing it before with Alex and Aimee) we wanted to go home. So, at 2 am we were finally discharged. After getting home we had a treatment to do before going to bed. Finally at 3 am we got to go to bed.

Alex was doing well all day. He was CRANKY this morning due to lack of sleep, but after a couple of much needed naps was full of energy and happy. His breathing is still a little fast, but we will be following up with his dr. later this week. Now, we are back to breathing treatments every 4 hours, which means interupted sleep and planning our days around treatments. Hopefully we won't have to keep doing this.

Luckily for us, Alex does the treatments very well. We will hook it all up, turn on the TV, hand it to him and he will sit there until we turn it off. I'm so glad we don't have to fight him!

I'm hoping for some of this drama to go away. Boring would be good right now.

Hope everyone else is healthy and stays that way!!!