Monday, March 19, 2007

Febrile

Yesterday the family went to a birthday party at the park for my friend's daughter Ani. She turned 3.

During the presentation of the presents, a friend of mine who was a former firefighter/EMT said that she thought Dylan looked like he was having trouble breathing.
I tend to agree with the medical assessments of former EMTs who love my baby, so we took Dylan to the urgent care.

Once there, they quickly triaged him and determined that his temperature was over 105. OVER 105.

He was whisked to an exam room and given Children's Motrin, a breathing treatment and a chest x-ray. His fever started reducing quickly, but his breathing was still fast and junky. His x-ray showed a possible pneumonia developing, so we were OFF to the emergency room.

His fever stayed down in the ER, not WAY DOWN, but not 105.
The nurses wanted to start an IV and push saline in case of dehydration. Dylan's little veins did not cooperate and even with four nurses in on the action, two attempts to start an IV ended in pain and screams from Dylan and no IV.
Terrible.

After another set of chest x-rays, a heaping helping of Pedialyte and one Land Before Time movie Dylan fell asleep laying on me.
He was snorting and snuffling, he'd stop breathing and then snarfle back to breathing. Very scary.
The nurse came in to get his vitals one last time, as they had pumped him full of rocephin and were planning to discharge us from the ER.

HOWEVER.
While sleeping (and snarfling and gasping for air) Dylan's O2 saturations were down at 84 percent. (AKA not good)
When he woke up, they went up to around 91% - still not good.

The ER doc OBVIOUSLY didn't want to keep us overnight, despite the fact that I TOLD THEM I was not happy with those saturations and would probably sleep INSIDE Dylan's crib that night, they told us that 93% (where he eventually got to) was good and that he would be fine.

I wanted to scream at them, but I was so flipping tired.
He's going in to see his doctor today and I am going to raise holy hell for more treatment of his burgeoning pneumonia. 93% is not good!

The friggin idiot nurse was like, it's probably only so low because he is all stuffed up and can't get enough air... uh, ya think?!? That's exactly what I'm worried about!!!!!!!

Anyway...I'm exhausted. Dylan is still sleeping. I did sleep with him on the couch for about two hours before putting him in his crib and then returning myself to the couch where I could listen to him breathe all night.
I'm very very tired.
Coffee's up!

4 comments:

Andrea said...

Holy crap Jessey, you are having one hell of a week! I am so sorry about everything. I know how scary/infuriating ER visits can be. Raise hell at the doctor's office today. I am lifting you and your family up in prayer. Please let us know how Dylan is doing later, and how YOU are doing.

And just for humor's sake--I know 93 is definitely not good for Dylan, but I would be jumping up and down if that's what Drew's O2 sats were. ;)

Jessica said...

I know! I felt slightly guilty even saying that 93 is crappy when I know that many, many people hope and pray for 93.
It was really the 85 that scared me. I can do 93 if he's sick, but 85? No no no.
Today at the docs his sats were back to 96 and that made me a little less nervous.
But his doc is saying that Dylan does not have pneumonia and it was likely the ear infection that caused his temp to spike. Now he's on antibiotics and rest.
Geez louise.
What a week eh?
Chaos reigns.

Chris said...

!
Poor thing. Are the two of you OK? I know that couldn't have been easy. :-(

Jessica said...

Dylan seems better. The decongestant drops are really clearing out his nose. FINALLY!
He slept yesterday from around 4 pm until after 8 this morning...a very restful recuperative sleep I hope.