What a Week!

Wow what a week this has been!  I'm more exhausted mentally and physically than I was when Dax was a newborn. This feeling of exhaustion is comparable to his week long stay in the NICU... and I hope I don't have to feel this way again for a LONG time!
Sunday night was our first, of what I hear will be many (apparently little boys are accident prone... no way right??) trip to the ER.   Last Thursday at daycare Dax started this little cough. It was so little that I seriously thought it was fake, that he had picked up on my coughing I had been doing from the week before and was imitating it.... I figured that he had figured out a new noise and that he was just enjoying doing it. Well by Saturday morning he was not feeling well at all. His cough had gotten deeper, he had lost his voice completely, he was breathing pretty heavy, and he was pretty fussy. He just was not a happy baby. And p.s,  a baby with no voice is so sad!! He couldn't even cry... I had to turn the monitor way up at night so I could hear if he was getting upset. By Sunday evening he was horrible. Breathing really rapid, you could hear his little chest rattling with every breath, he didn't want to eat (that's HUGE for this little piggy), cough was so bad that he would choke and cry when he was done, and he was so tired but couldn't get comfortable enough to fall asleep. After 7 hours of refusing to eat, coughing fits that sounded horribly painful, and an hour of nonstop crying we decided that we couldn't handle it anymore and took him to the ER.  When we were there he finally got a fever for the first time. They checked him out and found out that he did have RSV (which is what I suspected since it was going around so bad... while we were there we saw 6 other babies about the same age as Dax with the same symptoms in the ER). And did I mention the mid evil torture device used for chest xrays on a baby???? Well this is it...

Isn't that just awful?!?! It was a mixture of I want to cry at how awful this is and I want to laugh at the fact that my child is in strapped into a torture device.  Luckily the guy was super fast and Dax didn't have to sit in it long.  Dax's oxygen levels looked ok, he wasn't dehydrated, he wasn't wheezing, and his chest xray looked ok so we got sent home with the instructions to try and get him to eat, suction his nose, and keep him at home until he felt better. They also informed us that it would get worse before it got better....  and boy did it ever..
Each day he seemed to get worse and worse. It was one of the worst feelings to see him in so much pain and knowing that there was absolutely nothing I could do but sit and wait. Tuesday night his temp spiked to 102.5 and from there on out it stayed at about 101 even after having Tylenol every 4 hours. Wednesday was just awful. He had to be held all day long (sleeping, awake, it didn't matter, he had to be held). He wouldn't eat (he had 10oz all day.... where he usually has at least 25oz, cereal twice a day, and a veggie at lunch). His breathing was getting heavier and more labored, and he started wheezing quite a bit. He would stay awake for 20 minute spans, then he was just absolutely exhausted and would go back to sleep, and during that 20 minutes that he was awake he just whined and whined... it was simply pitiful. He seemed very weak, would just lay there, and not move while he whined. We were really concerned about him getting dehydrated but luckily he never did. Wednesday night we noticed some retractions in his ribs (something we were told to watch for) and he had some wheezing but we figured we would wait and see how he was in the morning.
Well this morning I got up and he still had the retractions in his ribs, was wheezing pretty bad, and now his nostrils were flaring (another thing we were told to watch for). So we put him in the car and headed back to the hospital for the 2nd time in five days.   While we were there he got his nose suctioned good and a breathing treatment... which he did NOT like at all... but he responded pretty well to it and sounded a lot better afterwards.  This time we got sent home with an inhaler and mask for him to use every 4 hours.  Just having that was very comforting.
Since we've been home he's been pretty good and I think... **fingers crossed**... that he's starting to turn the corner on this RSV.  He played today for the first time in 5 days, talked for the first time in 5 days, and gave me a full blown Dax smile for the first time in almost a week.  His temp has also stayed down today and we've only had to give him Tylenol twice all day. He still has a yucky cough, sounds rattly, has fussy times, and is only eating about 3 ounces every 4-6 hours but this is a BIG improvement from where he was.


Thank you so much for all of the thoughts and prayers that have been sent our way over the past week. He can't say so himself... but Dax really appreciates it :)

Sunday Night: Dax's first ER visit

Sunday Morning: He had the saddest sick eyes :(

This Afternoon:  Man I've missed that smile!