House Full of Boys!

We were able to bring Liam home from the hospital yesterday around 5:30pm. Liam however has to be on oxygen at home while he is sleeping. We monitored his oxygen saturation all day yesterday and he did fine (93%) off oxygen when he was awake but when he would nap he was between 86-88%. So we had to contact a company that provides home oxygen and they came and set it up for us last night. We have a concentrator in our room (Liam will be sleeping in our room for now) that pulls oxygen in from the room air and isolates it and provides it to Liam through the nasal cannula. We also have an O2 tank in a stand with a regulator in case we lose power. The kids were very intrigued by the whole process and were listening in on the instructions from the rep. The kids were instructed not to hit it with objects or knock it over or it could explode (even though technically it can't he still tells kids this so they will leave it alone). This did not sit well with Adley. He immediately became panic...

Today we found out that Liam has RSV (Respiratory Syncytial Virus). RSV is somewhat like the common cold, but it affects little kids differently because they can't clear their secretions and their airways are smaller. There is really no way to treat RSV except to support the symptoms and wait out the virus. So we will be here receiving neb treatments and oxygen. He is on antibiotics for his ear infection and to cover and other respiratory infection. The last time Liam was in the hospital we did have an RSV test done and it was negative. I am wondering if maybe the test was wrong then and he has had this all along. Not sure why it would show up again so quickly though. We are doing well and many have called to check on us - thank you. I will have to work tomorrow so we have coverage for the big boys while Jared is with Liam. I have to say it will be weird working on the same floor where my baby is sick. I can't exactly take care of him though because it would be a 'conflict ...

So here we are again, back in the hospital. Liam was not improving this weekend and we took him back in today. He has continued with a fever, coughing, wheezing, etc. The neb treatments were helping but he was just so lethargic lately. I am so tired of going back to the pediatricians office. It is almost embarrasing at this point. I know that the people who work there are probably thinking, 'she's a nurse, why can't she take care of her kid at home'. But I kept having that feeling that something wasn't right and it wasn't. While in the peds office Liam started having some blue coloring around his mouth (circumoral cyanosis), another sign of low oxygen and sure enough his saturation was 82%. We did a neb treatment in the office and it only came up to 84%. So here we are again. His chest xray looks the same as the last visit - probable viral pneumonia. He has exhibited the exact same pattern as last time. He also has double ear infections. Poor guy! He really has ...

Last night I got home from work and heard Liam coughing through the baby monitor. It was the barky croupy kind of cough...and he was wheezing again. Jared went up and gave him a nebulizer treatment. We waited a little while and he didn't sound better. I brought him downstairs to be with me. He had a low grade fever too. I called the Pediatrician. He told us to repeat the neb treament and give him some of the oral steroid I had leftover from last time. We did and he seemed to improve a little bit. The albuterol wired him up pretty good and it wasn't until after 12am we got him back to sleep. He slept pretty good in our room with the humidifier on. We took him to the doctor this morning. We were told he had croup and reactive airway disease (RAD)- or in other words, not asthma, but a history of coughing, wheezing and respiratory problems of an unknown cause. Kids usually aren't accurately diagnosed with asthma until around age 6, so when little kids present with ...

Lately it has been a little bit warmer. The boys have been able to play outside - finally!!! Since we signed up Aidan for soccer we decided he better start to practice. The boys were outside for over an hour playing soccer with Jared and the neighbor boy joined in as well. I can't wait until they spend most of the day outside burning off some energy! Eli chasing after the ball Liam watching all of the excitement I thought I would throw this picture in there too. Eli carries his cars everywhere with him. Especially 'the awesome car'. That is the name of the car. Eli eating dinner with all of his cars!

As many of you already know Liam spent 3 nights in the hospital this past week due to hypoxia (decreased oxygen saturation) and mild dehydration. He had been sick for about 2 weeks, starting with a croupy cough that got a little better over a week. He seemed to be feeling okay for his birthday celebration and on Thursday the 25th he went in for his 1 yr checkup. He was running a fever and had a horrible cough. We were told to watch him over the weekend and if he didn't get better to bring him back in on Monday. He continued to run a fever, decreased appetite and no energy to play. He would nap and then wake up and lay around the house He was not playful at all and he just wanted to be held. On Monday evening we took him in for a follow up and he had lost 11oz since the prior Thursday. His lungs didn't sound too bad according to the doctor, but we did check his oxygen saturation and it was 85% (they want it above 90%). So off to the hospital we went. I was lucky enough ...