Here's a riddle for you:
Where can Mom and Dad stay 2 nights for free, but the crib is really expensive,
the room comes complete with complimentary room service for the baby, plus round the clock "child care" - only you can't leave the room?
Give up?
The children's hospital.
Owen came down with a very minor cold Saturday (a bit of a runny nose and a bit of a cough) and by Sunday afternoon he was wheezing and struggling to breathe. We took him to the ER at the Children's Hospital (which is nicely only 5 minutes away from our house), arrived about 6pm and spent the next 6 hours in an ER room while they monitored his blood O2 levels, and took chest xrays. Xrays were ambiguous - his lungs didn't look junky enough to be considered pneumonia, but they weren't clear either. He was tested for the flu and RSV, but came out negative for both, so they think it was some other virus that got him and gave him medicine to help open up his lungs through the nebulizer (nebs). . The docs decided his blood O2 levels were dropping lower than they wanted to see once he started to sleep, and he was still breathing fairly hard, so we were admitted to the "inn" and shown to our room around 12:30am. They put him on supplemental O2 for the night, slowly weaning down the concentration over the next 18 hours back to room air levels, and giving him nebs every 4 hours. He responded to the medication really well and by Monday afternoon was back to his usual self - wanting to play, and frustrated that all the tubes attached to him gave him a very short leash in which to do that! By early Monday evening, he was off the supplemental O2 and they kept him overnight to monitor his blood O2 while he slept. He did great, so they discharged us this morning (Tues) and we all came home to catch up on some much needed sleep! He still has a bit of a runny nose and a cough as he clears out all the junk from his lungs, but he is doing great, and you wouldn't even know he had been so sick just 2 days ago! He did really well in the hospital, smiling at all the nurses and doctors, and not putting up much of a fuss at anything (except getting the IV in!), and was generally unphased by the whole ordeal.
We were relegated to our room partly because of the 3 machines he was attached to, and partly because the space they found for us was on the children oncology floor - so we couldn't risk infecting the really sick kids with weakened immune systems. But that did put things in perspective for us.
 |
| This was Saturday afternoon - pre-sickness ride on the giraffe |
 |
| Monday afternoon nap on Dad |
 |
little play - his O2 tube is just about at max right now -
he's about 3 feet from the crib. |
 |
| Owen decided that the hospital would be a good place to start standing on his own without holding onto to anything! |
 |
| Ah, open backed hospital gowns - this would be so indecent if not for the diaper! |
