Category: kids

We’re home and Caleb is doing well!  His crib mattress is at a 45 degree angle and he has his own humidifier.

We’re two hours into the four hour test – can Caleb maintain his oxygen levels without supplemental oxygen?  If he can, we’ll be going home in two hours!  Yeah!

We had kind of a rough night.  Caleb was doing good on 1/4 L at midnight so they decided to slowly turn down the oxygen overnight.  (They were trying to get us home today!) Only they didn’t tell me.  So in the wee hours of the morning I couldn’t figure out why his oxygen levels kept falling to 80% and then spontaneously going back up to 90%.  When they fell below 80% I paged the nurse.  The nurse that responded wasn’t our nurse but she figured out that Caleb was on room air!   We turned it back up to 1/2 L and he fell asleep for a couple of hours and woke up his usual happy self.  But neither of us got a whole lot of sleep.  (Caleb’s taking a nap now so all is good.) 

We are now back to a 1/4 L and expecting to see the doctor over lunch.

(Caleb’s figured out how to get the oxygen tube out of his nose.  So he did that 3-4 times last night.  Luckily he hasn’t figured out how to keep the machine from beeping when his oxygen levels falls so I always find him out!)

10:21pm.  We are back down to 1/2 liter of oxygen and looking good!  Caleb spent the last couple of hours eating a ton (well, compared to the last couple of days anyway) and playing and talking.

They got his oxygen down to 1/4 liter this afternoon.  (They turned it down little by little and then waited to see if his numbers held steady.)  But we had to turn it back up to a 3/4 liter this evening because his heart rate jumped back up to the 200s and his oxygen went down to 88%.  (Actually, probably his oxygen dropped and then his heart rate went up as he tried to get more oxygen.)

I don’t know much about this but I don’t think we’ll be going home tomorrow.   He has to be completely off oxygen for four hours and still doing well before he’s ready to go home.

Caleb is doing much better today.  He slept all night, ate 5 ounces in
one sitting and woke up "talking" like he normally does.  His heart
rate has also come down a lot.  We even got a couple of smiles out of
him today.  (He’s been playing and interactive most of the time but no
smiles.)  As soon as he can maintain this without oxygen, we’ll be able
to go home.  In the meantime, it’s nice to be here in the hospital with all the help
from all the experts.

Oh … and did I mention that everyone that comes to visit has to wear
a mask, gown and gloves?  (RSV is very contagious.)  I think Caleb’s wondering why everyone looks
so funny … he stared at our new nurse this morning for a good 10
minutes.  Then he finally gave her a big smile!

In case you are wondering where we are – Frank and I are camped out with Caleb in a hospital room this weekend.  Caleb has Respiratory Syncytial Virus, RSV for short since I haven’t even figured out how to pronounce it yet.   For most of us this would be just a common cold but for the little guys like Caleb who are under six months of age, it can be quite serious. 

Caleb had been sick with a runny nose and a cough since Wednesday.  Many thanks to his day care provider who on Friday called us at work and said she thought we ought to take him to the doctor.  With a temperature of 99.6, a runny nose and a cough, we would have dismissed it as a cold until much later on Friday when it got much worse. 

After a very long wait in the urgent care waiting room (over 90 minutes during which our six year old was very, very good), we finally got in to see a doctor.  They immediately determined that his oxygen saturation was not sufficient (85% instead of at the 92+% they would have liked to have seen), his temperature was 101.6 and he was starting to have problems breathing.  You could hear him struggling to breath.   His heart rate was also over 200bmp – part of the trying to get enough oxygen to his body.  They immediately did chest xrays to eliminate pneumonia.  (The xrays were very cute – his whole torso fits on one xray.  You could also see his teeth even though none of come out yet!)  They sent us over to hospital and by 9pm we were checked into this room where we’ve spent the last few days.  They’ve been treating him with oxygen and nose suctioning.  (Not his favorite but he must realize it’s helping because he’s gotten better about them.)  The earliest we can hope to take him home is Monday morning.