Friday, I was thrilled to pieces after our doctor's appointment, because we set a date to do a bronchoscopy....and if everything looks good, remove the trach! It's July 2nd. I was over the moon.
Saturday rolls around, and I had been having to suction Evan more often. He started getting these red, itchy, watery eyes, was sneezing like crazy, and was having a little more trouble keeping his saturation level up.... But I wasn't too worried, because he seemed to feel a little better as the went on.
Oooohhh, but that night.
He woke up so often, coughing. I gave him an extra breathing treatment to see if that would help, but two hours later, he was back to coughing in a wheezy way. The poor guy was just exhausted Sunday, because he hadn't gotten very good rest.
He was needing much more oxygen than usual to maintain his saturation levels, and his heart rate was elevated. My poor baby was sick.
I called the pulmonologist, and told her that it looked for all the world like allergies to me... I mean, itchy, watery eyes, sneezing, etc, that's what you'd think, right?
She gave us the go-ahead to use children's Benadryl. Afterwards, Evan fell into a deep sleep, which he needed so much. After a few hours, he woke up with the same problems. Extra breathing treatments were given to ease his wheezy coughing.
When we could, we gave him another dose of the Benadryl.
In the meantime, Evan started having diarrhea.
The Benadryl didn't work to make him better. He was running a fever, so I switched to using Tylenol that evening to help ease the fever. No more Benadryl after that.
And we had another night of Evan barely getting any decent rest.
Monday- Evan's fever had lessened, but his coughing was worse, he was pale, and he was still having diarrhea. I thought to myself "okay, it's time to call the doctor". And I did as soon as their office opened.
I made an appointment for that afternoon (that was the soonest they could see us), and we hunkered down for a hard morning. I learned that his coughing was better when he for breathing treatments roughly every 2 hours, so I continued with that. But he was so fussy, and clingy, wanting to be held and to sleep.
Finally, it was time to go.
We loaded up, and I hoped SUPER-SIZED hopes that he would ride well on the way. Otherwise, I was going to have to pull over every so often in order to suction or comfort him.
Thank goodness, he did great.
We got to the pediatrician, they examined him, sent him for a chest X-ray to check for pneumonia, and then we headed home, just waiting on the call. Thank goodness it wasn't pneumonia. His theory was that it was an upper respiratory infection.
The pediatrician had called in some medications for us- and corticosteroid and an antibiotic.
The extra breathing treatments were helping. Evan was sooo tired though. We got his bath done that night, and the corticosteroid seemed to work some magic, because he was a little better with the cough. His fever did spike, and I gave him more Tylenol. After that, he slept like he was going to sleep for years. He still woke up frequently, but the coughing wasnt near as bad, and the diarrhea eased up somewhat.
Tuesday- he smiled at me again. There was no fever, and he didn't sound too wheezy. I gave him his meds through the day, breathing treatments, but we were able to play a little. Mostly, though, he wanted to sleep. So we snuggled a lot.
By evening, he was almost back to his old self.
So that brings us to today. My little guy enjoyed a day filled with activities that we normally do daily, but have missed out lately. He sat up on his own for long periods of time (even showed off by reaching for things with both hands), and we talked and sang and played.
I'm so happy he's feeling better.
Now, let's hope this doesn't affect the date we're supposed to try and get rid of the trach.
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