King For A Day....(or five)...Our First Hospital Visit

Finally a little time to sit down and document our first trip to the hospital.

Our little Kaden man gave us quite the scare.  Kaden started getting sick a couple of weeks ago, which just started out as a cough. He really only had a cough for a couple of days and then he seemed to be getting better. Then the weekend of the 15th and 16th, his cough was returning. Monday, the 17th, I got a call at work from daycare saying that she was a little concerned with how Kaden was breathing. She said he was coughing a lot, was fussier than normal, and his breathing didn't seem quite right. She left a message on my phone and I right away called the doctor. We were able to get him into Sioux Falls yet that afternoon. When we got there, she could right away tell that he was "grunting" and that was of big concern to her. He was VERY crabby while in the office. They did some blood work, had a chest xray done, tested him for RSV, and gave him a nebulizer treatment in the office. After looking at the x-ray quickly, they could tell that he had the start of pneumonia. They sent us home with a nebulizer machine and some antibiotics and told us to call in the morning with a report of how he was doing. That evening, I packed up a couple bags with our necessities, because I wouldn't have been one bit surprised if we needed to make an emergency trip back over to Sioux Falls.

Kaden had a pretty rough night that night and scared mom and dad more than once. He just seemed to be having soo much trouble breathing. He was refusing his bottle and what he did take, he ended up throwing back up. We put him in his car seat to sleep for the night with the humidifier right over top of him. I put his car seat right next to my bed, so I could keep my hand close to make sure he was still breathing! None of us slept very well that night....except for Kenley girl, which was really a blessing.  Tuesday the 18th our daycare was closed, so we were already planning on having grandma Deb come over and watch the kids. On any normal day, I most certainly would have never went to work with the way Kaden was feeling. However, we had Preschool Screenings that day and I couldn't leave everyone short-handed. I was just glad he could stay in the house and get some extra grandma-love that day. The doctor actually called me at work on Tuesday morning to get an update and to let us know that his RSV panels all came back negative. I told him, that even after several nebulizer treatments, he still appeared to be struggling to breathe and he didn't appear ANY better than the day before. He told me that we definitely needed to bring him back in and made us an appointment for an hour and a half later. I rushed home, Cody rushed home, grabbed our bags and packed up a few last minute things, and headed out the door. We put Kenley's car seat base in grandma's vehicle and she just took Kenley home with her. We were so thankful she was able to do that!!

When we got to the doctor's office Kaden still looked pretty pathetic. The dr. took a thorough history of the last couple days and did a complete exam. Kaden's respirations were high and his oxygen levels were lower than what they wanted to see. He was also very dehydrated. We were informed that he should probably be admitted to the hospital to be given some IV fluids, oxygen support, and take a look at his lungs. Broke mommy's heart. We were pretty sure that's what he was going to say when we walked in there, but it still wasn't something I wanted to hear. He wrote up his orders and we were on our way over to "The Castle" ~ Sanford Children's hospital.

Kaden was admitted with "respiratory distress." When we got checked into the hospital, his respirations were even higher than when we were in the office and the nurse was pretty worried about him. We got things situated and then they took him from me to go to the procedure room to start an IV. Now, I could have gone along, however they recommended I didn't if I don't care for blood.....so needless to say, I stayed back in his room. BUT, I could hear him nonetheless. We were both crying now. It took a of couple attempts to get the IV started and because he was dehydrated, his blood ran like syrup and clotted very easily, so it was difficult to get the lab work they needed. Once back to his room, they wheeled us down to have a chest xray done. As they are wheeling us through the hallways the nurses are trying to prepare me for what the "contraption" they are going to have to put him in will look like and what they are going to do with Kaden to get the xray done. I don't think they could have ever prepared me enough for the sight of that. This "thing" looked like a medieval torture device!

**This is a picture I found on the internet. I must point out that this kid is much bigger than Kaden and it certainly fails to show his tiny little feet flailing around as they hang out the bottom and the horrified scream we had to endure.

The nurses were well prepared though and the process went rather quickly.

The xray showed a viral bronchitis and they could actually see little pockets of Kaden's lungs that had collapsed, which was why he was having so much trouble breathing. They started him on steroids and he received nebulizer treatments every 4 hours around the clock (I will also let you know that he screamed during 95% of them!) Even with the nebs, he was continuing to require much oxygen support. When he was sleeping, his oxygen saturation levels would dip into the 70 and 80% when they wanted to see him at least above 92%.

They tested a second time for RSV, which again came back negative.  It seemed like nobody believed it. The doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists...they all kept saying "he sure sounds like an RSV kid." After 3 days on oxygen without showing any improvement, they decided to do another xray. The doctor at this time was actually looking for a collapsed lung. He said that could happen, especially with the small pockets he first presented with. This xray did come back showing improvement from the initial one, so that was excellent news for us to hear. Even though he didn't sound like he was getting better, he actually was. The doctor told us that we just needed to be patient and wait him out. The steroids however made our little man crazy! He screamed and screamed and screamed and screamed and screamed!!  It made for some very long days. The nurses told us that the steroids were probably causing him to feel like he wanted to crawl out of his skin and he has no way to express that to us. We felt so bad for him, but it was a trying time for mom and dad too.

Finally on Friday night, (after the doctor told us we probably wouldn't be able to leave until Monday at the earliest) Kaden must have decided he was ready to breathe on his own. He went on room air at midnight and his oxygen levels remained at the appropriate levels through the remainder of the night and into the morning. With the way he was requiring oxygen just the day before, nobody could believe that he was now on room air, just out of the blue. The doctor visited with us that morning and told us that we were in that "iffy" stage. Should he send us home or should he stay and be monitored for another 24 hours?? He left the choice up to us...we decided it was time to come home.

They sent us home on an oral steroid that he continued for 3 days. Thank the Lord we are done with that...we're hoping to see some improvement with the screaming. He also is to continue with the neb treatments 4 times a day for 30 days. He's still screaming through those though :(

We are very much looking forward to having our happy little baby boy back!!

I'll leave you with some pictures:

Ready To Go Home!!!

We also want to say a huge THANK YOU to grandma Deb, as she was able to keep Kenley for us the entire time we were in the hospital. What a blessing!!  We knew she was being well taken care of and didn't have to worry about her at all. We missed her like crazy, but it made our time away from her a little easier. We can never thank you enough~ love you!!