My goodness am I far behind! It has been a little hectic around our house the last 2 weeks. In my last entry I mentioned that Ryder had a stomach bug all weekend that kept me home from work...it took him a few days to get over the stomach bug, and he was just starting to feel better when he came down with yet another illness...
When we put Ryder to bed on Thursday night (2/3) we noticed that he had very mild cold symptoms, so we turned on his humidifier and applied some baby Vick's to his chest and back. When he woke up at 2:00 for his bottle I quickly noticed that his "cold" symptoms were much worse; his lungs were wheezy and coarse sounding (mommy got out her handy, dandy stethoscope) and he was breathing very labored at a rate of about 80 breaths per minute. I quickly gave my little man a nebulizer treatment, which we had on hand from the fall when he had RSV, and waited for his breathing to improve. Normally the nebulizers work almost instantly, but this time I noticed NO difference at all. I woke up Jason and told him that I was really worried and thought we should take him in, so off to the ER we went.
When we got to the ER the nurses took one look at Ryder and brought us immediately back to one of the critical care rooms...now mommy was starting to get scared...After being quickly assessed by the doctor it was determined that Ryder had RSV (
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/respiratory-syncytial-virus/DS00414)...again...great! The nurse in the ER gave Ryder a different kind of nebulizer, and his breathing started to improve slightly, but it was still worrisome and I was concerned that we were dealing with something worse than just RSV. The Dr. ordered a chest x-ray and told us that they would be sending us home and that we should just continue with the nebulizer treatments and plan for Ryder to get worse before he got better. Having heard this speech before with our first round of RSV, I wasn't very excited for the days to come. I convinced the Dr. to keep us at the ER until Ryder's chest x-ray came back and thankfully I did because his x-ray showed bilateral pulmonary infiltrates, a.k.a. pneumonia.
I have never, in my life, been so happy to hear the word pneumonia come out of a Dr's mouth! This meant that my little Ryder Roo would get put on antibiotics. So instead of just getting sent home to "watch" him, we would actually be doing something to treat him. The nurse gave Ryder his first dose of antibiotic before we left the ER that night, and we headed home with strict instructions to bring him back if he got any worse.
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| Sharing chew toys with his puppy... |
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| I don't have any pictures of Ryder when he was sick, so you'll have to settle for this picture of my cute little guy taken on 2/8 when he was starting to feel better (finally)... |
To say that the next few days were rough would be an understatement...Our usually happy and content little guy was super fussy, clingy, and whiny for the next 3-4 days. I wanted so badly to make him feel better. Why couldn't I have pneumonia instead of him? Seeing your child sick is not a lot of fun. It made me feel so helpless. And it didn't help that he HATED the antibiotic which made it a struggle with each and every dose (for the entire 10 days), or that he HATES getting the boogers sucked out of his nose. Holding your 8 1/2 month old down while you force-feed them medication and use the bulb-syringe on their nose does not make you feel like a very good or nice person. Deep down you know that you are doing it because it's what best for them, but in that moment you feel awful. Ryder and I both did a lot of crying that week!
On Monday (2/6) we had a follow-up appointment with our primary Dr. Ryder's lungs still sounded very wheezy and coarse, but Dr. Jacobson said to just continue what we were doing and that he expected Ryder would be better in about a week. My other major concern at this point was that based on the Ryder's weight at our appointment; he had only gained 3 ounces in the past 3 months. I was expecting that he wouldn't have gained a ton of weight since he hadn't really been eating for the past week and a half, but I wasn't expecting his weight gain to be so small. Dr. Jacobson assured me that his appetite would eventually come back and to continue offering him food as normal but to not be discouraged if he continued to want nothing to do with food. (Dr. Jacobson ended up being exactly correct, because that following Monday (2/13) we had our happy, smiley baby back, and he's been eating like a little piglet ever since!)
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| You would never guess he was sick... |
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| Still into EVERYTHING despite being a sick little boy... |
To add to the fun in our family that week, Jason went to the dentist on Friday (2/3) for a toothache and found out he has to have his wisdom teeth removed. He was also started on antibiotics and an appointment has been made for February 28th to have the teeth extracted. Let's hope we don't have any more medical/dental issues for a good, long while!
We did have some fun during week #6 (much needed). That weekend we headed out to Tracy, MN to spend some time with our dear friends Drew and Tori Hesse and their 6 1/2 month old Linkin. It was great to see them and it's always fun to see how Ryder and Linkin interact with one another. I even left Ryder with a babysitter (Drew's mom, Deb) for the first time that Saturday night so we could go out to dinner with no babies. It was a lot of fun and the food was great, but I missed my little guy like crazy and couldn't get back to him soon enough! **I will be sure to add pictures of the boys together as soon as I'm able**
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| The hubs and I at dinner... |
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| Tori and her brother, Treig |
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| Jason and Drew think they are SO funny... |
On our way back from visiting the Hesse family we got to spend some time with my parents and with my in-laws before heading back home to Rochester on Sunday evening. It's always so nice to see and spend time with our families, and I love watching Ryder with his grandparents.
Well, if you've made it to the end of this entry, congratulations! I think that pretty much sums up weeks 5 and 6 of 2012. I plan to blog again tomorrow night about week 7, so stay tuned for that entry as well as for some new photos.
