We've Been Nebulized

This weekend Johnathan started out with a very mild cough on Saturday. By Sunday at his 4:00 bottle it seemed like something was definitely agitating him in his throat so he started coughing and projectiled the whole thing! The same thing happened at the 8:00 bottle and he worked himself up so bad that then he was coughing terrible. He had nothing else going on (no temp, no wheezing, no diarrhea, nothing) so I gave him Tylenol and put him to bed. By 2:30 a.m. the Tylenol started wearing off and at that point he’d wake up every ½ hour coughing but would go back to sleep and wasn’t spitting up. Around 5:00 a.m. I got up with him to check his breathing and to see if holding him upright would help but it didn’t seem to help much other than that he was able to sleep better.

So today was supposed to have been his lung function test so I called Pulmonary and explained the situation. After observing him for the day and him not getting any better they wanted me to take him to the pediatricians to make sure nothing was going on (ear infection, etc.) but they were thinking that he might have been irritated by something and his airway became inflamed, causing the coughing. So I took him yesterday afternoon and he definitely got worse as the day went on, when I undressed him there I could clearly see that his retractions were worse than normal and the doctor heard a slight wheeze at the end of each of his breaths. So they started him on a nebulizer with albuterol and I gave the first treatment there – needless to say he did NOT like this! After the treatment the doctors listened again and couldn’t detect a wheeze anymore and I could see that his retractions were already back to his normal so that was good. So now we need to give him these breathing treatments 3-4 times per day until we finally have the lung function test – which will hopefully be next Thursday, worst case the week of the 11th. Johnathan did better last night. We gave him his treatment at 8:00 p.m. and he didn’t wake up to need another treatment until 4:00 a.m. so hopefully he’ll get better in a couple of days and will start sleeping thru again – we all need it!

The lung function test will give a clear picture of what’s going on, whether his lungs haven’t grown as quickly as the rest of him or if he has some inflammation constantly and needs a daily steroid to prevent the inflammation or if he’s a child that might just need the breathing treatments occasionally when he has a cold or has been exposed to something that irritates him. Please pray that the later is the case as steroids are never good unless absolutely needed.

We did have a great time visiting with Linda and Callie on Sunday! Callie and Annabel are about the same length but Callie is a good 2lbs heavier than Annabel. The triplets are pretty much on the same page as her developmentally except that she is fully sitting up, where ours are still prop-sat. It was quite encouraging to see that according to their adjusted age, they are basically right on!