Under The Weather

This past week was a toughy for Vinnie. Last Thursday morning when we got up I noticed he had just a little cough. Being the parinoid person I am when it comes to my son I called his pediatrician. The pediatric group I take him to is a terrific group of doctors who each specialize in different aspects of preemie care. (one is cardiology, one lungs, etc) They were able to get us in with in the next hour.


When grandma vicki and I got him there he still wasn't too bad, but was a little more congested and his cough was getting raspy. Dr. Boone could hear congestion in his chest. They ran blood tests and a swab test for the dreaded RSV virus which would be most detrimental to him. Luckily his RSV test came back negative. She said the shot he receives each month, Sygnais, must be doing its job. His blood test did come back positive that he had a common virus which effects children with fever and congestion pretty much a cold. Since Vincent is a preemie his airways are smaller than a baby born at full term so even a cold is dangerous for him. Dr. Boone decided that he should have an x ray done to look at his lungs. Before that she had us give him two breathing treatments with a nebulizor of albuterol sulfate to see if that would help. She then listened to him each time after. It helped a little, but not enough. With his raised concern she sent us straight to Lebohner's Children Hospital Emergency Room. When I heard emergency room of course I had a slight moment of panic.


When we got to the ER people were waiting in line to park as the parking lot was full. Can you beleive it?! Later one of the nurses told me they have been extremely busy for the last two weeks with children coming in with symptoms like Vinnie. I pulled up to the front door and grandma Vic was nice enough to wait with the car for parking to open. We were able to get in rather quickly, but I was amazed by home many children were there. Naturally this made me parinoid though because I am a germiphobe and they could have something much worse than what Vinnie had and could give it to him. Everyone at the children's hospital was great and it was one of the shorter waits we have experienced. When we got back to the ER care area Vinnie was put in another one of the tiniest patient gowns in the world, was suctioned, and was put on oxygen for a little bit. He was already saturating 100%, but they put him on just in case since he was running a fever or 101.3, his breaths per minute was 65 (normal for his age is 28-36), and his heart rate was pushing 200 bpm. I think he was having flash backs when he was hooked up to all the machines. :) We took him in for the xray which was an experience I would never like to relive if possible. Now that he is older an mobile they have a device to hold babies still while taking the xray. It looks like a little tiny metal bicycle seat inside a ring. Two plasic peices then come around him while he is upright which is the length of his body and his arms were placed in the air. A strap is then secured to hold him in placed. He did not like this to say the least. His xrays came back and the ER doctor said that they looked pretty good. Nothing too threatening. They released us late that afternoon and told us to keep and eye on him and if he got worse to bring him back. The ER doctor determined he has bronchiolitus which is often paired with RSV but thank god he did not have RSV. He said since we caught is so early we were only into day one of the virus and it would get worst over the next 5 days and then should plataeu and start to get better over the next couple of weeks. It was amazing just through the day how fast his symptoms were progressing.


Saturday we took him back to his pediatrician as he was still breathing rather heavy, pulling hard with his chest, running a low grade fever, and his cough was REALLY raspy. She sent us home with a nebulizor. We give him breating treatments every 4 hrs, but other than that there is no medicine for a virus. He will have to fight it off himself. We do give him tylenol and motrin to control his fever. Our doctor told us that the office was packed all week with kids who had the same symptoms as Vinnie so it is definetely going around.


He's been doing pretty good all things considered. I keep telling him he's been through worse and to show that virus whose boss!!! :) Hopefully if he gets anything out of this it will be a little immunity. We have learned that no matter how much lysol, steam sanitizers, hand washes, purell, staying out of public, and so on that we do Vinnie is not completely exempt from getting sick.



In other news................


Vinnie will be 8 months old at the end of February. His consult with TEIS (tennessee early intervention services) went well to the point that after her evaluation she had to ask me where I thought he was lacking. He is almost caught up in many areas. Really he just needs more work with getting on that tummy so he can work on pushing up and eventually crawling in the next few months.


He is still on the preemie formula which has added calories. Since he is on the charts and is 16 lbs I imagine he will come off this soon and switch to regular formula. The preemie formula is not any more expensive than regular formula, but it only comes in the small size. He goes through about two of these a week. Even though he has been under the weather he has still been eating like a champ. His new favorite is peaches. He eats three to four containers of baby food a day along with his formula, juices, and now under the recommendation of his doctor water. He's pretty close to being able to hold the little bottles we use on his own.


6 month old clothes are fitting him nearly perfect now. The 6/9 month clothes fit him, but are a little long.