Jeremy and I have spent so much time entertaining each other in hospitals. Sometimes it’s while we’re sitting in a waiting room, waiting for a report from the doctor. But it seems like we’ve spent more than our fair share sitting in a hospital room, waiting for our son to get well enough to go home.
Our last hospital stay was in October of 2007. I was barely pregnant with Delaney. We had a good run. But all good things must come to an end and so we found ourselves back at the hospital, doing our thing, when Nate was admitted on Saturday. We had hoped that our diligence in getting him to the doctor early would allow us to avoid a hospital visit. No such luck. By Saturday morning Nate was running a fever of 105.5 and was on 5 liters of oxygen with an extremely high heart rate. Not good signs. I happened to be in Wichita, doing a little shopping at Old Navy and the brand new JoAnn Fabrics, when Jeremy called and gave me the bad news. I hurried home so we could get our little guy to the ER.
You know you’re in bad shape when you walk in the ER and they look at your child and send you directly to a room. We didn’t even have time to fill out paperwork before we were whisked away. The ER docs and nurses went right to work taking blood cultures, chest x-rays, starting IVs and all that good stuff. The chest x-ray indicated his right lung was full of pneumonia. The IV fluids and hospital grade Tylenol brought down Nate’s fever and about 4 hours later, he was sent to a room on the pediatric floor. And that’s when the real fun began!
Did I mention that Jeremy is also sick? So I agreed to spend the night with Nate so he could go home and get some rest. He left around 5:30 and then I was left to deal with quite possibly the worst nurse. EVER.
Nate’s fever was back up to 103 by 6:00 but there was no order to give Tylenol or Motrin. What? You’ve got to be kidding me! I had to tell nurse after nurse after nurse’s aide after doctor that Nate needed some meds. Finally at 9:30 the horrible nurse I previously spoke of decided she wasn’t really comfortable suctioning Nate and wanted to have him moved to PICU so she called the resident to come in. I told the doctor that Nate needed a breathing treatment (it had been 9 hours since his previous one), something to bring down the fever, and his regular meds to help him relax and possibly sleep. So finally she got the ball rolling a bit and sure enough, after a breathing treatment, Tylenol and Ibuprofen, he was doing much better. No need for the PICU afterall.
This was the night the time changed, which was kind of nice, because when you aren’t sleeping AT ALL, it’s nice to have your night shortened by one hour! Every time Nate would start to settle down and fall asleep, someone would come in to draw a lab, give a breathing treatment, check his vitals or give a medication. Not to mention the IV pump alarming, the pulse ox probe malfunctioning and the suctioning I was dealing with on my own. Anyone who has spent the night in the hospital knows exactly what I’m talking about.
But we did make it through the night. And Jeremy rejoined me in the morning, breakfast in hand, to help the time pass throughout the day. And his mom graciously agreed to spend the night tonight, to give us a little break.
We found out that Nate has RSV. So it looks like we will have to let it run its course. Once his oxygen is at a more manageable level, I think we will be able to go home. Until then, Jeremy and I will pass the time at the hospital by reading, playing apps on the phone and watching TV. Pretty much the same stuff we do at home.
