Casson Connection: Sickness

Last weekend I got home in the evening from a volleyball tournament and when I arrived Chris said I should listen to Colin's lungs because he had a pretty terrible cough. I did and he had a little wheezing in his right lung, which he has had in the past when he gets sick, so I didn't worry too much about it. Sunday came and Colin was running around but had terrible cough and little fever so I told Chris we'd run him to the doc the following day and make sure he didn't have strep again. Monday I met Chris and Colin at doctors office and when I walked into room, Colin was breathing pretty heavily and Dr. Lafredo said after listening he sounded like he had pneumonia! Ahhhh!!! She started him on an antibiotic and albuterol treatments. She gave him a breathing treatment in the office and it didn't really do anything and his oxygen level was 91%. I went back to work and just figured all would be okay. Then Monday night I gave him his breathing treatment and he was breathing rapidly but I thought "I'll put him to bed and see if it slows down." Well, it did not so I told Chris we should go to ER because he was making me nervous. Once we got there he had a fever also. They gave him triple the dose of a breathing treatment, some motrin, and did a chest x-ray confirming that he definitely had pneumonia. He was oxygen level was 89% even after the treatments and the doc felt we could go home unless we wanted to be admitted. He was leery of having us stay due to all the other nasty bugs floating around. I asked what he would do in our situation and his response was "I don't have kids and well I'm a doctor" ha! Anyway we brought him home and he seemed to be doing okay Tuesday and Wednesday but I was giving him breathing treatments every 2-4 hours. He wasn't wheezing as much but had a lot of crackles (fluid) in left lung and by early (3am) Thursday it was taking over his whole left lung. We had a follow-up that morning with the doctor and she said that she was going to put him on another antibiotic "which usually does well with ASTHMA kids" and some prednisone. She has thrown the word asthma around before and so have some of the providers at the urgent care but no one has officially diagnosed him with it due to his age. I asked her if we were officially diagnosing him with asthma and if so shouldn't I be carrying an inhaler around. She said yes, much to my disappointment, and also wrote a prescription for a rescue inhaler. I am still hopeful that he will outgrow it. I have had this fear for a while even when he was a little baby because he had eczema pretty bad and I had read some articles that related to eczema and asthma. Anyway, I am crossing my fingers!

We left the doc's office and picked up all of Colin's prescriptions came home and gave him all his medications. He has cried practically every time we've given him the prednisone because it is so gross and even couldn't help but spit it out yesterday. He really didn't mean to it was just his gag reflex. By Friday Colin was feeling better and his breathing treatment frequency lessened!! I also had an appt at the chiropractor and badly needed to hit the grocery store. I loaded all the kids just as Tim pulled up. I thought "oh good I'll have him watch the two little ones and I'll take Liam with me" WRONG. Colin was SO upset at that suggestion and started bawling. He was so tired of being cooped up in the house. Tim ended up going with me and driving the kids around while I was at my appt., and then went to the grocery store with me so I could be as fast as possible, and lastly we hit up Hastings so the kids could pick out a book.

The Hastings trip came as a side trip to make Liam happy because he was all upset when I got back into the car. I guess while Tim was driving them around he mentioned something about a great grandpa that Liam hadn't met, and Liam being inquisitive asked why and then the subject of death came up. Liam asked Grandpa if everyone in Kingman dies and Grandpa attempted to recover by saying when they get really really old. Anyway, he hasn't talked about it again and he wanted to go to the bookstore which helped him forget about it all at the moment.

By now Colin is doing much better and his left lung is clear at this time but he still has a little wheezing in right lung. But, we have gone 24 hours between breathing treatments so I hope that he has kicked this pneumonia's bottom! We have another follow-up this Thursday.

Of course as Colin is feeling better Liam had the croup cough Friday night and today (Sunday) he started with a fever. I am just hoping he recovers quickly (as he usually does) and my kiddos can all just be and stay HEALTHY!!

Here is our sweet boy getting a breathing treatment Monday night before the ER visit. He does really well with them. He gets impatient unless we read or he has a show to watch but overall he doesn't fight it.