Friday, October 05, 2007

Respiratory distress

Not the words you want to have to use to describe the condition of your newborn.
E caught the boys' cold big time. By Wed. night he was having really rough time breathing. I called the advice nurse for Kaiser and she said to take him to the local ER. I was worried by that point, because Kaiser is not known for their eagerness to pay out-of-network. So, off the the ER I went. We got there at10:30pm. By 11:30 we were looking at a chest X-ray that was a little fuzzy. The dr. made the call to transfer him to Doernbecher Children's Hospital in Portland. He was worried enough to send him by ambulance.
Fortunately his oxygen saturation was good enough that he didn't need anything really. The local hospital had tried to dilate his airways using an albuterol-type drug. That didn't work to help his breathing any, but it did seem to wake him up enough to get him to eat. Since he was eating and the super-nose sucking device worked it's magic, we were able to go back home that afternoon.
I'm beat. So is C. Needless say, he has a bigger pile on his desk at work. I'm so glad he's able to stay home again.
The doctor (who, coincidentally, was G's dr last year during his Kawasaki's bout) gave me a great idea. G is now allowed to kiss E as much as he wants--on his toes! I felt bad about saying "stop kissing your brother" but then, look what came of it. I was ready to lay down the law. So this is a great compromise I think.
Also, as much as I was creeped out by the idea of a hand sanitizer with chemicals that stay on your hands for up to 3 hours (I mean, really it's quite disturbing, don't you think?) G will now be sporting a new scent anytime he is around other germy-situations. Anytime we leave the house actually.
We shall have to see how they respond to the FDA. However, it has been in use the UK for awhile now. My in-laws quite like the stuff. We'll see. I'm more concerned with E breathing for the duration of the winter for right now

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi!
Glad everyone's back home, albeit exhausted. For your peace of mind, I'm pretty sure I saw the hand stuff for sale last winter in the states, so I think the FDA approved it.;-)(Is that the way to type a smile?)

Love,
Granre

MMMandM said...

scary, S. wow. I'm so glad you are back home & everyone is doing better.

I'm with you on the hand sanitizer--- I have never smelled one I like. I really don't want to smell like alcohol, and I really don't want to smell like sun-ripened raspberries either. ha.


google cleanwell--- no alcohol but i have no clue how it smells.. hmmm.

Elle R. said...

This is a fun time of year, isn't it? My issue is that Nyssa's hands start to get raw and gross before we even begin to contemplate hand sanitizers. I tend to just carry around wet wipes, insist that everyone wash their hands before eating and when we get home and hope for the best. I'm usually the one to get the worst of the viruses anyway--I can't imagine having a newborn to worry about though! *hug*