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Sorry guys.  I know I was just back on my game, posting frequently.  Jordyn got really ill earlier in the week.  In fact, he was so ill I had to take him to the hospital ER because he had trouble breathing.  That was Tuesday - I’m starting to just now feel a little more calm.  When your 7 year old says, “Um, it’s hard for me to breathe.”  as he takes a breath between every other word, it kinda scares the hell out of you.  Here’s what happened.

Monday

When Jordyn woke up to go to school on Monday I could see on his face he wasn’t feeling well.  His eyes kinda turn colors and they sunk in a little.  I don’t know how to describe it other then to say that I just know when he’s coming down with something just by looking at him.  Momma’s intuition.  At any rate, his eyes were watering and he was sneezing and sniffling a lot.  At a certain point he just looked at me while eating his cereal and said, “I don’t want to go to school.  My head hurts.  I don’t feel well.”  So I let him stay home.  He was running a low fever 99.8.  Clearly he didn’t feel well.  I gave him a little medicine and by the end of the day he almost looked like normal again.  I thought he would go to school Tuesday because even he was saying how much better he felt.  We all went to bed happy.

Tuesday

When we woke up for school he had the same look as Monday morning.  I inquired as to how he was feeling.  He pretty much said how he didn’t feel well again and had a headache again.  So I let him stay home.  I noticed he started to have this dry nagging cough so when I brought Aryanna to school I picked up some medicine for him and gave him some when I got back.

Half way through the day he was playing on his computer and said, “Hey Mom!!  I can hear my heart.”  I immediately thought that was weird and knew right away that his heart must be pounding for some reason.  I put my hand on his chest and it literally felt like his heart was gonna beat right out of it.  He still only had a low grade fever with no other symptoms so I didn’t freak out.

I made him take a nap around 2 p.m. and he slept until about 5 when my husband woke him up.  As he was sleeping I noticed he was breathing weird.  It looked like his chest wasn’t rising normally and it appeared as if he was breathing rapidly.  When he woke up though, he seemed fine.  We ate a late dinner and as I was cleaning I got a little tired and went into my closet to play “camping” with Aryanna (whole other post).  Jordyn walked into the closet and was out of breath as if he ran there from across the house.  I asked if he had ran there.  He answered no.  After I asked him why he was out of breathe he said, “I don’t know.  It’s just kind of hard to breathe.  Plus, my neck hurts too.”

At that point I got scared so I put my ear up to his chest and even though I’m not a doctor I clearly could hear wheezing and hear that he wasn’t passing much air.  Our Pediatrician’s office was closed so I got him dressed and drove off to the ER.  They took him right away.

His poor little body was working so hard that the small walk from the waiting room to Triage made his heart pound.  The second he sat down his body started to slow down again.  When they checked his temperature, it had gone up to 101.6.  Immediately the triage nurse gets him a room and sets him up for a chest x-ray because they thought it was pneumonia.

Of course my little man was charming all the nurses.  He was polite and cute and well behaved mostly because I brought playing cards for us to play his favorite games with.  I figured we would be waiting a while and I didn’t want to spend it yelling at him for being ancy because who can blame a child for being ancy in a place like the hospital.  Anyways….they took him for the x-ray, gave him meds for his fever and then we waited around for the doctor.  When he examined Jordyn he said, “Well I didn’t see any fluid so it doesn’t seem to be pneumonia.  I think it’s viral.”  He paused and looked at me like I was supposed to concur with his statement.  I must have looked at him blankly because he kept going, “Soooo, I’m not going to ask for any anitbiotics because you treat viruses with antibiotics.  I really do think it’s viral.  I’m going to give him a treatment here and that should help.”  He asked me a couple times if Jordyn was asthmatic, as if I wasn’t telling the truth or something.  I just told him he’s never been diagnosed with it, nor has he ever had any attacks like this.  He listened to him breathe for a minute and explained again how they were going to give him a treatment.  Then he told us it was nice meeting us and left.  I never saw him again.

A little while later a respiratory therapist comes in and sets him up with a nebulizer treatment.  After the treatment she listened to his breathing and said it sounded much better.  He was so happy to be breathing better.  Next thing I know, the ER nurse comes in, hands me some folded up discharge papers and said, “Make sure to follow up with his Pediatrician this week.  He’s all done.  You guys are free to go.”

I just looked at her for a second and said, “Okaaay.  That’s it?  I mean do I need to do anything special for him?  Does he need bed rest?  Am I supposed to send him back to school in a week?  Do I get any meds in case he has another attack?”

She responds, “The doctor thinks this should help him.  Of course if he has another attack like this you need to bring him in immediately.  He can go back to school tomorrow.”

Again, I just looked at her and said, “So I’m not getting a prescription for anything?”

She said, “Nope.  Bring him back if he has another attack as bad as this one and be sure to keep an eye on the fever because that might trigger one.”

In my head at this point I’m screaming, “Watch his fever but oh, he’s ok to send to school?!?  Are you all crazy here?!?”  All I said was, “Thank you.”  I wanted to get out of there.

Of course I didn’t sleep Tuesday night.  I kept him in our bed for the night so I can keep track of his fevers and listen to his breathing.  I was NOT going to be sending him to school the next day.  I swear that when ER’s find out you don’t have insurance they treat you differently.  He was in there gasping for air, barely able to walk himself with a 101 temp but it’s ok to send him to school the next day.  Really?

Are you sensing my resentment?

Wednesday

Anyhoo, Jordyn tossed and turned all night Tuesday night.  At about 4 a.m. his fever spiked up to 102.  I gave him some Motrin for that.  He started to complain that he couldn’t get comfortable.  He changed positions a bunch of times.  He even tried sleeping sitting up.  He finally found a comfy spot and nodded off until about 8.  He woke up and ate breakfast.  He seemed ok and then bam, another attack.  He started having trouble breathing again.  This time I called our Pediatrician, explained what happened the night before at the ER.  The nurse told me to get dressed and bring him over right away.

The experience was so different there.  Jordyn’s doctor wanted to know every detail of the previous two days.  We were all silent in the room while he listened to him for atleast 5 minutes.  He immediately says he hears fluid and how he can hear his heart is pounding.  I laughed and reminded him the ER x-rays supposedly showed no fluid.  He just looked at me and said, “I know what you were told last night but I hear fluid.  It’s very little, but fluid nonetheless. “  So he decided to go ahead and start him on anti-biotics because even though he agreed it could be viral he’s not 100% sure that it’s not bacterial and won’t turn into something bacterial.  He gave Jordyn a nebulizer treatment, gave me some anitbiotics for him and gave me treatments to take home to use as preventative measures against another attack.  All things that should have happened at the ER and had they happened, another attack would have been thwarted.  But whatever.  On the way out the door Jordyn’s doctor said, “And please, please don’t send your son to school tomorrow or for the rest of the week for that matter.” as he laughed while rolling his eyes.

Jordyn’s ok and breathing better now.  Last night he slept better and so did I for the first time in three days.  It was scary.  That’s all I can say.  I wanted it to be me instead of him.  I’m used to solving whatever problem my son brings to me but the only thing I could do for him that day was to play Go Fish and Crazy Eights while we waited.  He was ok with that.  He thanked me for bringing the cards so we could play together.  I couldn’t ask for a sweeter boy….well sometimes, but not that day.

Here’s a pic of our visit.