What a Week

This week nearly brought me to my knees. Sunday night/Monday morning Espen spiked a fever, so I stayed home with him Monday. No biggie. I worked a bit (as much as you can with an almost-toddler who's in the phase of putting everything is his mouth). Tuesday I had a meeting to attend so I took him to daycare all hopped up on ibuprofen. Our provider was in touch that morning and said he was in bad shape; I came home at lunch to get him. On Wednesday, when he was still feverish and now starting to wheeze, I took him to the doctor, and after they took his pulse-ox, which measures the amount of oxygen in your blood, and it was 91-92, so they told me to get him to the ER. Thankfully, they had given him a breathing treatment in the office, so I didn't have to drive like a maniac, terrified. (Although I was still terrified).

We got to the ER and were taken in right away; he received two more breathing treatments and an oral steroid to calm down the inflammation and hopefully make it easier for him to breathe. We went home with instructions to give him the inhaler every 4 hours. The next morning (Thursday) I stayed home again from work, and I gave him his inhaler at the designated time, but he was still sounding horrible. So I gave him 2 more puffs, which is the max dose he can have. And when he woke up from his nap, he was STILL wheezing. So back to the ER. :( This time I had to wait 2 hours to be seen (they took his pulse-ox and it was 97), and we were there for a total of 6 hours. Breathing treatment and sent home. It was brutally tough taking him to the ER and handling it on my own; Pete's been working in Palo Alto so he couldn't get home easily. :(

It turns out he has bronchiolitis, which is a viral bronchitis caused most likely by RSV. I'm so very happy to report he got a "much improved" report from the doctor yesterday; I cried last night out of relief that it was over. He was so much more like himself today. We got outside and spent some time watching a drum circle and seagulls and dogs. He ate lamb and pork for dinner at a Greek restaurant and laughed and laughed at Lucia jumping around. Thank God.