Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Sick Baby

It started nice and slow.  Andrew had a runny/stuffy nose on Thursday.  By Friday, he added a little cough and on Saturday the cough increased in frequency and became croupy again.  He sounded like a barking dog as he was coughing.  After the second time that he coughed so hard he threw up, Melissa told me that I could called Kaiser and see if we could get him in (it was 7:45 pm on Saturday). 

I left a message with the after-hours nurse and when she called me back at 8 pm, she told us to come right away.  We were able to get right into the pediatrician office and did not have to go to Urgent Care (fantastic!!). 

After listening to his lungs and checking everything else out, the doctor pronounced the diagnosis of Bronchiolitis.  Never heard of it?  Neither had I--Bronchiolitis is a common lung infection, often caused by a virus. It most frequently occurs in infants, commonly younger than 6 months of age.  Bronchiolitis starts out with symptoms similar to those of a common cold but then progresses to coughing and wheezing. Symptoms of bronchiolitis typically last for a week or two and then go away.

The treatment is a neubulizer and breathing treatments. 

Breathing treatments + five month old = traumatic

We've spent a lot of time trying to convince Andrew to sleep (he's not having it) and eat (3 oz vs. 8 oz).  He's cried more in the past few days then he has in his entire life!  The humidifier is running any time Andrew is in his room and he likes playing with it, so I let him.

We have to do breathing treatments four times a day now (or more if needed) for this week and on Saturday we switch to twice a day for the next two weeks.  In total, he'll have to have these traumatic treatments for three weeks!!

1 comment:

  1. oh no, poor baby! Abby is starting to get sick to. I had to call the advice nurse and take her in on Tuesday. I am so not enjoying a sick baby. I can't imagine having to do breathing treatments as well. Hang in there momma!

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