Team Newman / Ferme

It’s been a hell of a week, and it’s not over yet. Daniel is back in hospital and has been all week. He’s quite a sick little boy, and is miserable too, which is hard to handle. He’s got a virus – adenovirus - and his lungs have become clogged with mucus leading to bronchiolitis. He’s getting better slowly, but he’s been on increased oxygen all week, and will remain in hospital until he’s back to normal. Here’s how the week panned out…

Sunday night:

Lachlan was starting to get the sniffles and couldn’t sleep with a blocked nose. I ended up sitting up with him until about 1 in the morning helping him sleep. I was then awake again at about 4:30am when they started rousing again.

Monday:

We took the boys to the GP at lunch time. We ended up running a bit late, because Lachlan vomited in the car on the way. The doctor said they were getting a cold, but because they were ex-premmies we would have to keep a careful eye on them and come back if they didn’t get better in a couple of days.

Monday Night:

We did the oxymetry test for Daniel. So after only 3-4 hours sleep the night before, I got about 4 hours sleep on the Monday night. Dan was sniffly, but didn’t have too many problems sleeping. As I’ve said in another post, he did really well on the oxymetry, so we were pretty happy.

Tuesday:

We took the boys to the doctor (respiratory specialist) who looked at the results of the oxymetry and gave us the good news. He also listened to Dan’s chest and said it sounded clear. He also warned us that if Dan got worse that he should be in hospital.

Tuesday Night:

By the time Tuesday night hit, Dan had developed a really nasty cough. In the evening he vomited his dinner (all over me) and refused to drink his milk. We were getting pretty worried about him, because he was deteriorating so much but he was so tired that we put him to bed instead of going back to the doctor. We called a locum to come and see him instead. By the time he arrived at about 9pm we were debating going to the hospital, because Dan had woken coughing and crying and had a fever. We gave him panadol and the doctor prescribed some antibiotics after a cursory examination. Richard then spent the next two hours getting the prescription filled and then double checking if the dosage was correct. In the meantime, Dan drank a little more milk, but then his fever just kept going up and up. Even then he was so tired he was practically passing out, I had to undress him and put him in a cool bath. The poor sod cried the whole time, but he’s such a sweety he couldn’t help but play with the toys in the bath. He also vomited up the little bit of milk he had drank earlier. At about 11pm we gave him the antibiotics and monitored his temperature closely. It started to come down, so we decided to put him back to bed to get some sleep. Richard stayed up with him while I got some sleep. I was so tired. It didn’t last long, because Dan was awake again at about 1:30am. Richard gave him more milk which he vomited again. I think we finally managed to get him to keep down some milk and get to sleep at about 2:30am. Then at 4:00am he started coughing again, and at 5am he was refusing milk and just crying uncontrollably. He wouldn’t open his eyes or respond to us at all. So we decided to take him to the hospital. We had been stressed all night and neither of us had had much sleep in three nights. Even if they told us to live with it, we had to do everything we could.

Wednesday:

I took Dan into the hospital while Richard stayed home with Lachlan (who was also sick, but not as bad). We got into the emergency department pretty quickly, because the place was very quiet. We were seen by a number of doctors, one of whom told us that we’d be admitted because she thought Dan had developed bronchiolitis. They took some cultures from his nose to see what virus he had, and it turned out to be adenovirus, which is quite nasty. Because there were no beds available on the children’s wards, and the baby ward was closed with a gastro outbreak, we spent the whole morning in the emergency department. Dan had perked up a little as soon as we left home, but he was still very tired and miserable. While we were waiting for a bed, I managed to get him to drink some milk without vomiting, and he slept in my arms for a while before we both passed out on the bed. That’s where the nurse found us when she came to move us to the short-stay ward.

We were on the short stay ward for the rest of the afternoon. While there we finally saw the respiratory registrar, who said that Dan was in a bit of a grey area, in that he could be admitted if that’s what we wanted, but if we wanted to take him home we could. After thinking about it for a minute, I decided we would stay. I was dog tired and the last thing Richard and I needed was another night stressing about whether or not I made the right decision. If we were already at the hospital, then I didn’t have to worry about it. After the registrar left, Dan then vomited up his lunch (yes, you guessed it, all over me) so that confirmed for me that we needed to stay. I ducked home to get some gear while Dan slept and when I returned I was informed that we would be moved to the children’s ward.

Wednesday Night:

When we got to the children’s ward, Dan vomited again, so I think he had only managed to keep one or two small bottles of milk down in the previous 24 hours. I was getting worried about him dehydrating, but the doctor examined him and said that he was still okay for the time being. She decided that he should have small drinks every couple of hours overnight to keep him going. I was physically exhausted, so I told the nurses that they could do the feeds for me. We were actually located in an open ward, but all the other beds were vacant because Dan (and I) were so infectious so I finally managed to get a little bit of sleep. Dan managed to keep all of the milk down overnight, but he was physically and mentally exhausted.

Thursday:

We were moved from the open ward to an isolation room which was much more private. Dan slept a lot during the day, and was only drinking little bits of milk. He was given paracetamol for his pain, and his nose was suctioned frequently to help him breathe. He was also on oxygen continuously to keep his oxygen saturation levels up. He was pretty miserable, but perked up a little when Richard and Lachlan came to visit. Lachlan was still sick, but still wasn’t anywhere near as bad as Dan. He was a bit miserable too, and had developed a cough, but he was still drinking his milk and eating solids.

Thursday Night:

This was another bad night for Dan. He hadn’t been drinking much milk during the day, so I decided that I would ask for him to have a couple of feeds overnight. I tried to give him a bottle at about 11pm, but he refused to take it. The nurse told me that she would try again in a couple of hours and I should get some sleep. I was woken at about 1:00am by her trying to get Dan to feed. Again he refused. The nurse then brought in the doctor to examine him with the idea of putting an IV line in to give him some fluids. It was just because Dan was so tired and feeding takes so much energy that he just didn’t have. The doctor agreed to put in an IV, so they put some cream on Dan’s arms and hands to numb the skin. They said it would take half an hour to become effective. In the meantime I tried to doze, but was interrupted by some very strange behaviour from Dan. I didn’t understand it, but he seemed to be trying to roll over in his bed. He’d gone from complete exhaustion to playing!? I checked on him and his arms and hands were really red where the cream had been applied. I grabbed the nurse who immediately removed the cream and said he’d had an allergic reaction. The doctor wasn’t sure she could find a vein considering how swollen his arms and hands were. They decided to wait for a half hour or so to see if the swelling went down. (It was now about 2:45am). She came back at about 3:20am and said they were going to give it a try. So we all trotted off down the corridor to the treatment room, where they attempted to insert the IV. Finally, Dan caught a break and she found the vein on the first attempt. Dan wasn’t too upset by the experience, and went back to sleep pretty easily. So now we didn’t have to worry about feeds – we just had to keep Dan’s nose as clear as possible and let him rest. I finally got to bed at about 4am.

Friday:

I woke early to hear Dan crying and when I checked on him, I found that his nose had been bleeding. All the suctioning had left him in a complete mess. The poor boy must have been in so much pain. Thankfully, with the IV in, he didn’t have to worry too much about feeding during the day, so he could rest as much as he liked. We did offer him milk still, because the drip only offers fluids - no real calories to keep him going.

Friday Night:

We finally had a more restful night (relatively speaking), though Dan woke a couple of times with really bad coughing fits. The nurse had to suction his nose again, which restarted the bleeding, but it helped him breathe better. Richard in the meantime, was struggling with Lachlan, who was still sick and had developed a bad cough as well as some vomiting. Poor Richard was up all night caring for him. I was tempted to tell him to bring him in to be admitted, but he was still quite active and happy during the day, it was just the cough at night that was a problem.

Saturday:

I decided to swap with Richard, because I thought he needed a break, so I came home to look after Lachlan and Richard went to the hospital to be with Dan. Dan was a bit more awake and aware in the morning, and the drip was discontinued. The IV remained in his arm in case he needed it, but he was quite playful and happy for short periods in the morning. I went home at lunch and spent the rest of the day playing with and caring for Lachlan.

Saturday Night:

I had hoped that Richard might get some more sleep at the hospital, but it turned out not to be the case. Dan was still in a lot of pain and wasn’t drinking his milk overnight, so Richard was up continuously trying to help Dan deal with his pain. I, on the other hand, only had a couple of incidents with Lachlan, who slept most of the night very well. He went to bed at 7pm, and I didn’t hear from him until around 11pm when he started coughing. He was so tired, that it barely woke him, but it was continuous and quite painful. I did what I could to help him, including suctioning his nose. He cried when I did that, but then fell straight back to sleep. In the end, because I was so tired, I took him into our bed, where he slept soundly until about 5am when another coughing fit struck. He recovered quicker this time and then we both slept in until 8am!

Sunday:

I took Lachlan into the hospital to see Dan today. Richard says Dan’s still pretty miserable, but he (Richard) is getting them a bit more organised with Dan’s pain management and his care. Richard is much more proactive than me, and I think that’s what Dan needs at the moment. I think Lachlan needed a little bit of Mummy time too and I’ve enjoyed my couple of days with him. Still, it was very difficult to leave Dan this afternoon, because he’s still so miserable. I think I’ll stay again tomorrow night. He’s improving every day, but the doctor’s want him to stay in hospital until they’ve reduced the amount of oxygen he requires.

My worry now is what the long term effects of this illness are going to have on him. Is he going to require oxygen all the time? Is he going to need more oxygen than previously? Is he more at risk of developing asthma now? Is this going to happen every time he gets a cold? Richard and I are already debating pulling both boys out of childcare if this is going to be the result. We’ll just have to find the money for a nanny.