Thank you all for your kind comments and well-wishes. Gus is doing fine now, but it was a crazy week! (These pictures were all taken after he was doing much better.)
We took him to the ER last Saturday because he was having difficulty breathing. Technically, he was “retracting” (look that up on YouTube if you’re curious. It’s awful.) The intake nurse at the ER took us straight back after looking at Gus and a doctor and a bunch of nurses swarmed us and went to work on him. Talk about scary! I had to grit my teeth and breathe slowly to keep myself together.
We eventually moved to the pediatric floor and he was stabilized but not getting any better. At about 11:00 on Saturday night, his oxygen level dropped from 100 to 50 and he got really bad. He was barely breathing at all and working extremely hard for each tiny breathe he was able to take. We had a room full of people working on him trying to get him stabilized again. They were ready to life flight him to Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake. Fortunately, he kept breathing on his own and slowly got better throughout the night. He was still retracting and struggling to breathe by Sunday morning, but his heart rate had dropped from about 200 beats per minute to about 150. He was still on LOTS of oxygen, but his respiratory rate was not in the danger zone.
Fortunately, after Saturday, the worst was over and he slowly got better. He had several things working against him – RSV, pneumonia, and asthma. His asthma is worse than normal for a baby his age and wasn’t being treated at all until he got really bad because they didn’t know that was an issue. I should have told them, but I didn’t really know it was an issue either. Now I do!
By Monday afternoon he was much more himself, although still on oxygen and needing IV fluids.
We got to come home from the hospital on Tuesday morning. He and Elliott both had fevers later in the week. Boyd got the stomach flu and then I had it on Saturday night. I think we’ve gotten everything there is to get and we should be healthy for the rest of the winter. I hope…
Anyway, thanks for all your thoughts and prayers. Stay healthy!
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