So as we said in our previous post, Joshua was at the Children's Hospital with RSV last week. He ended up being there for 5 days before he was well enough to go home. So here's what happened: Like Eric said, we took Joshua to the Doctor on Thursday, Friday and Saturday but each day he just kept getting worse despite multiple steroid treatments and inhaler treatments for his lungs. He was breathing fast and working really hard and on Saturday our Pediatrician sent us to the ER.
When we got there, they couldn't even hear any breath sounds when they listened because his airways were so inflamed and closed. I held him in my lap and held a mask to his face for 2 hours while he got continuous albuterol to open his airways. He fought the mask and screamed until he fell asleep. He improved a little bit but not nearly as much as he should have, so they admitted him. I hated giving him his breathing treatments because Joshua would kick and scream every time, and he had to get 16 puffs of inhalers every 2 hours for a while.
Then he had problems with oxygenating his blood, so they put him on oxygen which he hated and tried to rip off his face. It was so hard to see him so sick. For about 3 days he would just lay there, not moving, staring at nothing. It just goes against everything a toddler believes in, it's not natural! He wouldn't eat or drink enough so he had to get an IV (the red sock in the pictures is covering it so he wouldn't rip that out too).
That was horrible too, when they pinned him down and stuck the IV in him and he cried, "Mommy!" I admit I definitely had some tears over the last week myself.
By the 4th day he started showing interest in his toys and we could tell he was feeling a little better.
Heartbreak moment:After being treated in the ER for 6 hours we were moved up to Joshua's room. I laid him in his metal crib and he stood up and put his arms around my neck... "Mommy...Dundee" (Translation: done, or no more)
The Iron Jail..it totally took me back to our NICU days.
Poor Sad Boy...and me hiding my stressed, sleep deprived face from the camera!
Luckily Doggy, Ducky and Blankie made an appearance and provided much comfort.
Just after the Doc's gave us clearance to go home, happy day!
Of course, within a few hours of getting home I got sick with a cold and have quarantined myself all week to try and prevent him getting my cold on top of all this.
It's hard to believe, but last week was our 4th anniversary! Eric showed up at the nursing home where I'm doing clinical right now and brought me flowers, it was very sweet (and embarrassing!). On Saturday he surprised me with a gift certificate for dance lessons and we went to our first lesson as part of our date. It was really fun. I took a dance class at BYU and have always wanted to be able to dance with my husband...but he never wanted to. So it was really a thoughtful gift, thanks honey! Then we went out to dinner at Maggiano's (where we had our wedding luncheon) and afterwards a musical that our stake put on. All in all, it was a great anniversary! I'm so lucky to be married to Eric, he would do absolutely anything for me (including leaving his comfort zone in a huge way to take dance lessons:) ), he is a really fun dad, he works hard to provide for our family and I admire his strong testimony. I knew after just 2 weeks of dating him that he was definitely the one I would marry and I'm so thankful I did!
