RSV

It's been a rough week for this little guy! He woke up with a significant wheeze and cough last Friday morning. Since it came on so quickly and he is still so little, the pediatrician wanted to see him that morning. They diagnosed him with RSV. We are familiar with RSV because of Parker, so I knew this could be serious and that it was going to get worse before it got better. The nurse practitioner that we saw prescribed breathing treatments to help with the wheezing, although she admitted that with RSV, the breathing treatments only help the wheezing in about 10% of the cases. She also scheduled us to follow-up on Sunday morning, which she said would be the peak of the illness to see how he was doing. 

On Sunday, we left the pediatrician's office with a prescription for an antibiotic because Spencer had now developed an ear infection (common after a diagnosis of RSV)!  He was definitely worse than he was on Friday, but he seemed to still be eating, sleeping and acting like normal. We were hoping this would be the worst of it, but unfortunately, that was not the case. Yesterday morning, he woke up much worse and very tight sounding. He was struggling more to breath and his oxygen saturation was lower. Another trip to the pediatrician--this time with a diagnosis of croup (another common occurence after an RSV diagnosis). The doctor was very concerned about his breathing so she wanted to give him steroids to treat the inflammation and help the croup. She gave him a high dose in the office and a prescription for 2 more days (3 days total). I didn't notice much improvement throughout the day.

Later that afternoon, I called the pediatrician's office with a question about the steroids prescription. The nurse could hear Spencer in the background. She became very concerned about how fast he was breathing and the noise he was making. I really didn't feel like he was any different than he had been that morning. After voicing her concerns to the doctor, they felt he needed to be seen again, unfortunately, their office was about to close, so they advised me to take Spencer to the ER. I questioned the nurse because I wasn't convinced this was necessary, but they really felt like he needed to be seen ASAP. At that point, I started to second guess myself and thought maybe they were right. So, off we went to Brenner Children's Hospital. I guess it's a good thing we are so familiar with the hospital!!

An hour and a half later, after spending all of about 5 minutes total with the ER doctor, we were sent home. They said Spencer had a classic case of RSV and he should be fine at home...I should have trusted myself. Oh well. Better safe than sorry. Last night was pretty rough--we were up most of the night with Spencer. He just couldn't seem to relax. He was agitated and tense. I really felt like he was having a bad reaction to the steroids. Around 6:30am he finally settled down and slept. Today he is a little better than yesterday and has seemed more like himself, so I hope we've turned the corner. We have another follow-up with the doctor on Friday to make sure he's getting better. It has certainly been a crazy week and it is definitely no fun to have a sick baby. However, despite how sick Spencer has been, he has stayed pretty happy. We sure love this sweet little boy and are very grateful that he is starting to feel better!!!