Monday, January 30, 2006

Violet! You're turning violet, Violet!

So last night, after two days of nasal congestion and general sickness, Dylan turned blue.
Let me back up. We were in my room, Dylan and I. I had just given him some medicine to ease his congestion which was starting to interfere with nursing. He could either breathe or eat, and he was choosing breathe. A smart choice.
All of a sudden, he starts like gasping for air. His little congested nose is so loud, trying to suck in any air at all.
Then he stops making noise and starts turning blue in the face.
His little eyes had panic in them. I'm sure mine did too.
Bob ran in and took him from me and he held him up to his shoulder patting him on the back, blowing in his face. Dylan started to sniffle and wheeze again. Bob took him out into the cool night air, and that seemed to help too. Shocked him back into breathing, albeit a labored breathing.
I got dressed ASAP, loaded him up into the car and drove 75 miles an hour into town to the emergency room.
By that time, he was still wheezy, but had stopped turning blue.
They checked his vitals, his O2 sats and listened to his lungs, which were clear (thank goodness!). Then they sent us home with saline drops and orders to suction his nose constantly, which I had ALREADY been doing with little success.
So, this morning, we're heading in to see his pediatrician to follow up and make sure he's not getting the dreaded RSV, a viral infection that put his sister into the hospital for four days when she was 9 weeks old and had her on inhaled albuterol for another week or so after that.
Big fun.
Wish Dylan luck today. He needs it, the poor little lamb.

4 comments:

Jessica said...

That's what the doc tells me. Babies are nose breathers for a while after they are born. They can't multitask I guess, and the mouth is definitely for eating!

Freebird said...

Ah, I hope he's feeling better.

cube said...

OMG that has to be the scariest thing ever. I'm sending good vibes to Baby D. Poor little thing.

LunaStone said...

My heart is with you. I had a simular situation happen with my friend's little boy, but it was due to a spike in his fever. I'll never forget the image of her panic striken face at my door. Having to do CPR on an 18 month old is not something I want to ever have to do again.

~ LunaStone