Thanking God for Tiny Breaths

Sunday morning, Brooks woke up around 5:00, crying and congested.  I tried to feed him and put him back down, but he was inconsolable.  Both Michael and I tried everything-- from walking with him to playing to giving him a bath.  He was having none of it.  It was around 7:30 that I noticed that he was sucking in air big time, his little chest heaving and his ribcage showing with each breath.  Clearly, I was concerned.

I popped Brooks in the car and drove over to the Urgent Care.  It may be the only time that I'll be grateful for a screaming baby in the car.  As long as he was crying, I knew he was breathing.

Let me pause this story to say that I'm still amazed at how little I know.  I was, obviously, really worried about Little Dude (and got more and more concerned as I drove), but never did I anticipate the following hospitalization.  Sheesh.

Okay, so we get to Urgent Care, which-- thankfully-- is pretty empty.  I walk up to the desk and say, "Honestly, I just want to see if I need to take this guy to the ER."  They quickly take Brooks back to check him out.  They see the wheezing, look at his tummy sucking in and out, and they tell me that, sure enough, we'll be heading to the ER.  But we'll be doing it in an ambulance.

The nurses start Brooks on a nebulizer, and Matt and Eddie, a couple really sweet EMTs, show up a few minutes later.  They lift the bed, me and Brooks up and into the ambulance, and we head out.  Matt gives Brooks a stuffed horse, a Clydesdale who we name Bud.  Eddie tells us not to have too much fun in the back.  I think about how the girls would be really thrilled to be doing everything that Brooks is getting to do.

My concept of time was foggy the whole day, but we spent quite a few hours in the ER, Brooks getting frequent treatments.  A respiratory specialist came in with another guy who was in training.  As Mr. Trainee looked at Brooks, the specialist told him, "See, he's classic."  I'm still not sure if I'm sure what that meant, but I think she was talking about his "retractions," how he was sucking in the air.  But look at this guy-- still smiling!

Brooks was so grateful to be breathing easily that he zonked out during one of his treatments!

I think it was around noon when we learned that we would be staying at the hospital for awhile.  They had gotten us a bed in Pediatric Short Stay.  The nurse, Rachelle, was sweet and wonderful.  However, it was an extremely short stay for us.  We were the only people up there, so they soon sent down to the main Peds floor.  We were getting an excellent tour of the facility.

On the Peds floor, we met Pam, our new nurse.  And we landed in the room that we would be in for the next 24 hours or so.  Brooks was doing really great.  I mean, really, Big Man was a CHAMP.  He was sweet and cooperative and wonderful.  The treatments were really helping him, and I no longer noticed the wheezing until he started getting close to the next treatment time.  Again, I thought about how Riley and Noelle would envy their little brother.  The Peds floor has a playroom with a train table, a bazillion other toys, and a giant fish tank, complete with a puffer fish and multiple "Nemos." :)  We snagged some toys for our room.

 

I'll fast-forward and tell you that we were there till around 2 on Monday, when Brooks was able to go 4 hours between treatments without wheezing.  We were on our third nurse at this time, Melissa, who just happens to be the wife of one of our pastors.  Small world!  (And a volunteer, Kaitlyn, goes to Taylor and is good friends with Mike's cousin!)

Basically, it's not certain he has asthma.  There have to be recurrences in order to establish that.  Something obviously didn't sit well with that tiny respiratory system, and his airways reacted.  We don't know exactly what that was, but if something like this happens again, we'll have to start looking for a pattern.  Right now, we have our own nebulizer, are praying that he does NOT have asthma, and are thanking God for each tiny breath.