Andrew has been sick for about 6 weeks now. It started out as what seemed to be a cold and developed into a viral infection of the lungs affecting his breathing. At first, we were not too concerned. He had just started daycare and we figured that catching a cold was pretty normal. When it didn’t clear up in two weeks, we took him to the doctor. He didn’t have a fever and was laughing and energetic, so she told us to just watch him and bring him back if he got worse.

The next week he started having trouble breathing and the doctor prescribed a nebulizer treatment. The week after, he continued to get worse and the doctor added a steroid treatment. The following week, when he was not responding to any of the treatments, she told us to go to the emergency room. He was clearly in respiratory distress at 70 breaths per minute and an O2 level of 90%. To make matters worse he is about 20% underweight.

We spent a long week in the hospital worrying about out little boy. They put him on oxygen, a diuretic, and a breathing treatment. It took him about a day to stabilize and the rest of the week to be weaned off the oxygen. Once his breathing came down to 40 breaths per minute and he was able to keep his oxygen level up on room air, they released him from the hospital. He is still wheezing and very congested and while we are grateful to not be in the hospital anymore, we are still concerned that he still has this infection. Our doctor said if he does not improve in the next few days she will consult with a pulmonologist.

It has been a crazy and stressful March and I hope that April will be a bit calmer. All the stress has finally gotten to me. In the last few days I have started having panic attacks, which is something I have not had in a while.