Uh-Oh Sick-O

I went to pick James up from day care yesterday and noticed he was wheezing pretty badly when breathing. His teachers said he had been like that all day and gotten a bit worse as the day went on -- he sounded like I do when I have an asthma attack -- so I decided to give the dr. office a call and they saw him right away (luckily they have somewhat later hours)! His pulse oxygen level was at 93% (healthy is 98-100) and he was sounding like wheezing through the stethoscope -- so he got his first ever Nebulizer treatment (see pic below). It is a liquid version of Albuterol, which is used for asthma. The dr. said she thinks he just has a viral infection (so no meds will help take it away) but it could be baby asthma (which he may/may not grow out of) or allergies or just a cold. So we went to Walgreens to pick up his prescription -- we killed time waiting by going to the cards section and checking out Hoops and YoYo sound cards, he thought they were absolutely hilarious (the Easter one was awesome) -- and came home with the medicine for the Neb and an oral steroid to open up those airways. He gets a treatment every 4-6 hours unless sleeping comfortably, then we let him sleep and get well rested. The dr. said he shouldn't go to school on Thursday, so him and I stayed home and played and cleaned up the house and all his toys that he puts in his mouth all the time (well, I did most of the last stuff, he really wasn't much help with anything put playing). Above :: he snagged my phone and wanted to call DaDaDa...or one of his girlfriends, I'm not really sure
Below :: getting his second treatment of the day...Day 2 has gone much much MUCH better than the first day...he SCREAMED during the first treatments (which I guess is good because then they deeply inhale more of the medicine). Today I put him in his car seat to minimize him arching his back on me, thus eliminating one thing I had to control -- have to keep his hands in and off the tubing and his head looking forward to keep the mask on. We turned on a Baby Mozart video while doing the treatment and it worked like a charm -- the second round I was even able to hook it around his head and not hold on with such a death grip.

This little boy sure doesn't look sick!!!

We're gonna play it day by day with the Nebulizer treatments and he gets the oral steroid through Sunday. Let's hope for a healthy Bug soon -- poor kiddo has been sick since mid-October when we had "plague week at the Montalbano household" and we were all sick.

One Sick House

It's been a couple weeks now and I think I'm finally caught up on things at home and school (well, as "caught up" as I'll ever be anyway). Two weeks ago I got sick on Sunday and it ended up being the flu -- it was pretty horrible...+103 fever, aches, seal cough, runny nose...the works. I had Jim look up if we could market "I Survived the Swine, 2009" T-shirts, but someone beat me to it. Then James stayed home Monday with us (Jimmy already had the day off but changed it to a sick day to take care of James and I) because he was coughing so hard he couldn't keep his bottle down. He went to day care Tuesday, only to be sent home with a 102 fever. Well, when the doctor found out that I had tested positive for the Influenza A, she decided it was a good idea to treat James for the flu too (that stuff is expensive)! Both of our fevers broke and we were on the mend.
We didn't get too many smiles out of James that whole week -- but he was still willing to play around for a little bit.

Then Tuesday night into Wednesday Jim spiked a fever. I made him go to the urgent care Wednesday when he hadn't heard from his doctor all day to see if he could get a script for Tamiflu since I was sick with the flu...ends up that was a blessing because he had Strep, not the flu. Luckily, James was already on amoxicillin for a possible sinus infection to combat that...so we don't know who the original carrier of the flu and/or strep was (I was negative for strep) but needless to say, we had a realllly long week!

Jimmy is all better, James is still coughing but it's just from his sinus infection and my flu turned in to a sinus infection, so I'm still coughing but MUCH better.
All this sick stuff can just stay away for the rest of time, thank you very much!