Just breathe

We've had an interesting start to our week. Stokes and I were at the pediatrician's office at 8:30 AM this morning. Poor little Stokie!

Let me start from the beginning...

Late last week, we noticed that Stokes had a little bit of a runny nose. Nothing to be too concerned about, but we were just keeping any eye on it and suctioning him at least twice a day. Over the weekend, we didn't see much improvement and he was sneezing a good bit and had started coughing as well. I was thinking it was probably allergy related since spring is in full bloom here. It also started affecting his sleep so on Saturday and Sunday night he was waking up and crying, which is pretty rare at this stage for him. All he wanted to do was to be held.

Sunday night he began wheezing lightly. Wheezing always gets my attention because the NICU nurses hammered it into my head that wheezing is a bad sign. I held him some throughout the night on Sunday but Monday morning, he was struggling to breathe. I could tell how hard he was working and could see around his rib cage the struggle he was feeling. I immediately called the pediatrician and got the first appointment of the morning.

It appears that Stokes had an asthma attack brought on by a cold. I've been thinking that he may have asthma for a while because I'll notice when he is being very active or going fast up the stairs, he will be breathing heavily. I was planning to bring it up to the allergist since they specialize in allergies and asthma when we have an appointment later this month. I was definitely not expecting to see an attack like we did this morning.

While Stokes and I were at the pediatrician, he got a dose of steroids and a breathing treatment right there in the office. The doctor came back in afterwards to listen to him again to see if the medicines had made a difference. His lungs were still very tight, but were doing better. He's on a strict schedule of breathing treatments every 3 hours while he's awake and 5 days worth of steroids. We will go back to the doctor tomorrow morning and hopefully see some big improvements.

We have a nebulizer and typically have some Albuterol medicine here at home but I usually wait until talking to a nurse before I use it. I know now that if I see any of my boys struggling to breathe like that, I need to go ahead and start the breathing treatments ASAP. I asked the pediatrician whether I should have taken Stokes to the ER, but she said he was fine to just come in to their office this morning. As a worried Mom, I always think back to what I should have done differently, but you can't go back, only forward. This will be used as a learning experience. Seeing Stokes in the condition he was in this morning really scared me. I'm so relieved that we figured out what was going on, have a treatment plan and we can most likely avoid the hospital. 

Sleep boy during a breathing treatment

So we had an appointment this morning, then we'll have a follow-up tomorrow morning and then Wednesday morning is Ryan's MRI. He'll have to be sedated, which makes me nervous(!!), so if you can say a few prayers for all of us, that would be appreciated!

P.S. Over the weekend William and I went to his first birthday party as an attendee! The boys have been invited to a few other parties but we haven't been able to go for one reason or another. This time we were planning to take the whole crew, but yesterday morning were worried that Stokes may be sick (runny nose, sneezing and coughing were all present) and Ryan's nose was running as well, so we decided to play it safe. Thomas stayed home with Stokes and Ryan and I took William on my own. After how strict we've been about getting germs and sick people near our boys, we didn't think we should take the chance to possibly get others sick! The party was great and it was fun to get some one on one time with William as well as see some friends I've known for a long time. Happy birthday to Hayes! Thanks for inviting us to your party!!!