Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Bronchiolitis

Is Gavin's most recent diagnosis. Yep, that's right folks, Gavin is sick again. Sunday night/early Monday morning, I took Gavin to the ER with retractions and shallow, rapid breathing. We arrived at the Pediatric Emergency Room at Our Lady of the Lake at 12:32 A.M. We were in a room by 1:00 A.M. and we waited. He was wheezing pretty bad and coughing alot. When the doctors (there were 2) finally came to see him (one at a time) they asked me the same exact questions:

Does he have asthma?
Has he ever had a wheezing problem before?
Has he ever had a breathing treatment?
Does he have a respiratory medical history?
Has he had any fever?

All the answers were no. Well, he got his first breathing treatment that morning at about 3:00 A.M. He kicked and screamed and cried and whimpered. It was so sad. He was none too pleased with the medical personnel (nurses, doctors, techs, CNA's, etc) coming into his room to wake him up ever 20-30 minutes. And it didn't help that the TV in his room was broken. They gave him an oral dose of steroids and gave him a prescription for the steroids and an albuterol inhaler and we were on our way home...at 4:30 A.M. Just in time for Chad to go to work, which he didn't do because I didn't get any sleep. He didn't even know we were gone. I woke him up to tell him I was taking him, but he apparently responded to me while sleeping. After arguing with the pharmacy and Emergency Department, we were able to get his prescriptions filled by 6:00 P.M. that evening. He was supposed to have his first dose of albuterol at 8:00 A.M. Not that it mattered, because it didn't help him at all. So, this morning I took him to his pediatrician and she said it was most likely a virus (Bronchiolitis) attacking his respiratory system, so she sent him home with a nebulizer for breathing treatments every 4 hours as needed for wheezing. Hopefully, he's better by next week so he can have his surgery!

2 comments:

debi9kids said...

Oh no. Poor guy. It just breaks my heart to hear when little ones are sick like this :(

Unknown said...

Sam gets trachitis, which is like bronciolitis but further up the tubes. Things which help him (and I bet you've already tried them, but something might help!) is steamy bathroom before bed, and during the night if needed, Karvol (albas oil?) on a piece of material near his pillow, which stops his nose being blocked and makes him less of a mouth breather, and obviously being propped up, but we use a beanbag as he digs into that a bit, and so rolls off the propped bit less!

The docs gave us an inhaler for him, and it has no effect, either in or out of an attack, although the peak flow monitor did let us see that he has reduced lung capacity when he's having a bout of it.

Praying for your lad.