Keagan's First Hospital Stay

I wish I were posting pictures of our weekend in Cape Cod with Erik's parents, but instead, we spent two nights at Emerson Hospital. Yippee! If you can't wait till the end- let me just say that Keagan is fine, he had respiratory distress due to a cold virus, but is currently playing in the backyard with Erik.

The Story:

Friday morning Keagan woke up with a bit of a cough- nothing unusual, and my worst thought was "oh no, we were at a friend's house yesterday, I hope we didn't just give them a cold." Erik also had a nasty head cold that left him sneezing all day, so he worked from home on Friday so as not to infect his whole office. The day passed without much to-do and we went about our business, just laying a bit low to contain our germiness.

Saturday at 5:00am Keagan woke up crying (very unusual for him, as these days he sleeps 12-13 hours straight at night and isn't normally up till 8am). Erik went to his room and soothed him and we all went back to sleep. Erik mentioned he might have been a little feverish, but we chose to let him sleep rather than wake him further for a little Tylenol. At 8am Keagan woke again and I went to get him. He was having some chills and felt a bit warm to me, and also having some coughing. I took his temperature, which was 100.4 and gave him some Motrin. I noticed that he was breathing rather rapidly, and also struggling a bit- you could see he was using a lot of muscle behind the breathing. I told Erik to get dressed and called the weekend clinic at Nashoba Valley Medical Center- which is where our family practice refers us to for weekend doctor visits.

At 9:30 we saw the doctor at the clinic. She listened to his chest and said "he needs a chest x-ray, hang on while I get the pulse/ox meter." This was slightly alarming, but not unexpected that an x-ray would be in order. She returned and put the pulse/ox on his finger (it measures your heart rate and how well your blood is oxygenated with high 90s-100 being normal). The meter read 88 and she said "Change that, you need to get him to the ER at Emerson Hospital. Don't go home or anywhere else first. You could go to the ER here, but there is no pediatric admitting unit at this hospital, so if he needs to be admitted, they would just transfer you to Emerson anyway." Needless to say, this was not something we wanted to hear, and rather disturbing. We got in the car and drove to Emerson.

We arrived at the ER about 10:45 and I went up to the front desk and said "I have a two year old who just had a pulse/ox reading of 88 at a family clinic" and they got the nurse right away, sat Keagan down to do their own pulse/ox and immediately took him to an ER room with "respiratory distress." They started a saline and oxygen nebulizer on him right away and monitored his pulse/ox. The doctor saw him quickly and added albuterol to the nebulizer, which is a brochodilator, meaning it opens up the airways and helps you breathe easier. They also ordered an oral steroid- which luckily, Keagan is happy to take liquid medicines and got down easily. Next step was a chest X-ray. Keagan LOVED the ride on the bed (with me up there too) to the X-ray room. He was slightly nervous when we took his shirt off and had him sit on the table, but he cooperated really well and we got the X-ray taken in one try. The X-ray results were negative for pneumonia. That was a relief, but also almost disappointing, because at least that would have been a clear diagnosis, where as we were still left with a bit of a mystery.

They wheeled in a TV/VCR for Keagan to watch while getting his nebulizer treatments, and the unavoidable waiting that occurs in the hospital. We got ourselves some lunch at the cafeteria (we all hadn't had any breakfast- although luckily we fed Keagan a cereal bar in the car between hospitals). Eventually, around 3:00 Keagan passed out in my arms and took a little nap. It was then that a nurse came in to inform us she had to do a rectal temperature- amazingly, he slept through it!! He was still running a bit of a fever at 100.5. Shortly thereafter they told us he needed to be admitted and we'd be spending the night. Erik went home to let Willow out, and bring back some essentials for us (night time routine things for Keagan, PJs and clean underware for me!)

At 5:00ish we got up to the pediatric floor to our room- via another bed ride that Keagan thoroughly enjoyed, especially because this time we also went in an elevator. We had a big private room with a giant window that had a crib and a bed in it. We ordered dinner for all of us and continued with Keagan's treatment and monitoring. Around 8:00, Erik left for the night and I got Keagan ready for bed. Erik was distraught over leaving us, but it seemed that Keagan was definitely in a "Mommy" mood and there just wasn't room for all three of us.

Keagan was intrigued by the hospital crib- which if you've never seen one, is a huge contraption where the mattress is about chest height and the rails on the sides go up from the floor to well above the mattress, and then there is a plastic dome top to prevent any risk of climbing out. He called it the "Dome Car" because of a Caillou episode where he goes on a train with a dome car on it. It was adorable, because he kept telling the respiratory specialist all about it ("ride in dome car!") when he got his treatment before bedtime. Unfortunately, even though he was happy to get in it, he wasn't able to fall asleep in it, and eventually at 10:00pm he came into the bed with me. This made for a VERY long night for me. He was tossing and turning alot, which meant I got very good at replacing (and re-taping on) his pulse/ox meter, and had a hard time lying down myself. Everytime I'd move, he'd move. He also required a lot of oxygen to keep the alarm from going off on the pulse/ox (which went off if it went below 92). They put a towel around a thick oxygen tube so that it's easier to hold and position at night, but unfortunately, you couldn't just position it near his head most of the time, it wasn't enough, you actually had to hold it right under his nose. I did a lot of this during the night. Finally, around 3am when I didn't think I could keep up anymore I asked to try the nasal prongs for the oxygen. This lead to a major scream fest from Keagan- his first real protest for anything done to him thus far, and he tore them off his face. Sigh. Oh well, so I don't sleep one night, right? At least he was sleeping- except for an hour from 4:30-5:30 when he decided he wanted to talk to me.

The next morning Erik got there at 8am, just when Keagan was finally waking up. We had breakfast and after being upright for a little while Keagan didn't need the oxygen. We were allowed to take him off the pulse/ox and go to the playroom. This was majorly exciting, as Keagan had been in a bed since 11:00am the previous day. The pediatrician came to see us while we were there and listened to his chest and talk to us about what was necessary for him to go home. The criteria involved 1) eating and drinking - check! 2) no oxygen - at this point he hadn't needed any for a couple hours, check! 3) getting the albuterol only once every four hours - she said we could go every three, then four, so that would take about 7 hours to check off, but doable to go home that day 4) he needed to sleep 2-3 hours for them to know he was ok in deep sleep because you don't breathe as well in sleep.... DOAH! I knew we'd be staying the night again when she said that because seriously, you're giving my son albuterol, which raises his heart rate, plus an oral steroid which makes him a little cooky, and you want him to take a 2-3 hour nap in a hospital room... do you know kids at all? Wasn't happening. We weren't going anywhere anytime soon.

After the pediatrician conference, we thought it was time for a Keagan to rest a bit. It was at this point we were told he could take a ride up and down the hallway in this special wheelchair for kids that had a steering wheel on it and looked like a race car. Keagan was totally excited for a ride in the "truck." Unfortunately, I think we tried one to many new things and when we told him it was time to go back to the room the poor little guy just lost it. Major, major screaming tantrum. Who could blame him? The nurse came into our room just to make sure it wasn't anything wrong, and was happy to leave us alone and be the parents. She came in later and was very supportive saying this behavior was of course normal, and he had been so good the whole rest of the time, and we shouldn't think twice about it or feel bad in anyway. So much for not letting him get too worked up his first time out of bed! Erik was able to calm him down after several minutes and we all ate lunch together.

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. Keagan did really well- no oxygen all day. It seemed a little overkill to have to spend another night when we were so sure he was "out of the woods", but we understood the concern, and having sat there watching his stats the whole night before, I knew how much they could drop while he slept. Erik went home in the afternoon to get some more supplies (yes, another pair of undies for me, thanks!) and then came back for dinner with us and another sad goodbye for bedtime.

Thankfully, this bedtime, Keagan was a champ. We did his normal routine as best we could in that setting, and he decided he wanted to go in the "dome car" and fell right to sleep at 8pm! I was soooo happy! I got to sleep in the bed and we both slept MUCH better. He didn't kick his pulse/ox off all night, and the alarm when off once around 1am, but his numbers came back really quickly. They pointed the oxygen tube into the crib at that point, but I honestly don't think it was really doing much nor did he really need it. He slept soundly till 5:00am, despite all the nurse visits and nebulizer treatments during the night (I wasn't so lucky, but I did at least get to sleep!). At 5:00 he woke up and saw me in the bed and said "want Mommy" so he came into bed with me at that point, where we chatted a while, had a graham cracker, and then slept till 8am.

Erik took today off and came into the hospital shortly after we woke up. Because Keagan was doing so well, he was barely on the pulse/ox today and we were mostly in the playroom or riding in the "truck." I was happy to see the pediatrician come into the playroom at 10:00am to talk to us and say we would get discharged today. We just needed to wait for the next albuterol treatment because they wanted the respiratory person to go over some things with us, since we'd be taking a nebulizer home to continue treatments there. So, at 11:00am we had the treatment and then were just waiting to be discharged! We ended up having lunch because they were having a printer problem (of all things!) and couldn't get our papers done right away- but that was fine, after being unexpectedly not home for two days, I didn't exactly have a lunch ready to go for us to come home to! By 1:00pm we were packed up and out the door.

Phew!

Being in the hospital with your child is an odd experience. Well, that, and terrifying and horrible. But it's odd because it's like time and your life stands still- all you can do is live moment to moment doing whatever it is you have to do to get your kid through whatever procedure or waiting period is happening. And your concept of time is totally bonkers there. You could have told me it was October right now, and I might not be at all surprised. It's so strange. I feel so blessed to have a healthy child, and cannot possible comprehend what parents of children who are routinely in the hospital go through. This knocked both Erik and I completely for a loop. I also think how weird it is that to the nurses and doctors, it's just "another day at the office", but to the patients, it's a major circumstance in their lives... that's a bit of an odd work environment I imagine. I applaud the nurses and doctors there, because they were terrific with us and Keagan. Keagan loved interacting with so many people, and often would say "doctor come back!" whenever one of them left our room. He charmed them all- and I swear he actually had FUN. He wasn't sure he wanted to leave there today! He actually said "no home."

So what now? Well, Keagan will be on the oral steroid for two more days, and will continue the albuterol through the nebulizer every 4 hours until further notice. On Wednesday we are going to our regular doctor, and we will discuss with him how and when to stop that treatment. He is acting normally, and wanting to play and run around. We're trying to keep him a bit calmer that usual, if we can, just because a lot of running around makes him cough and wheeze. I have gotten asked "so what was it?" and the answer is, a virus that caused respiratory distress. He does not have "asthma", as that is a condition that is developed and diagnosed over time, not with one episode- it could of course, be a possibility in the future, but let's not get ahead of ourselves!

Thanks for reading my long entry, but it's hard to tell the story without telling the whole story. This wasn't just Keagan's first hospital stay, by the way, it was mine as well :)