Tonite's adventure...

Well, I ended up taking Carter to Children's Hospital at Vandy tonite. He was pretty much inconsolable and I just had a gut "Mommy" feeling that something wasn't right.
They were WONDERFUL. As soon as we got there they pushed us straight to the front of the line (they have their own emergency room and everything). I guess they treat kids by the severity b/c a Dr. was in the waiting room and immediately took his vitals as I was signing in. He took us back pretty quickly and mentioned to the Dr. in the back that there were 5 ahead of us but he felt we were more "severe" and needed to be seen first.

They weighed him (an even 16lbs!) and hooked him up to a blood pressure cuff and pulse ox meter. His heartrate was elevated and his pulse ox kept dropping (I'm sure b/c he's having trouble breathing. We (Leslie went with me) were there until about midnight.

They stuck a tube down both nostrils and sucked out all the snot (it was awful, the tube went all the way down his nostrils to his throat and it looked like he was choking the whole time. If you've ever seen them swab for RSV it was kinda the same idea). They got a ton of mucus out but he was still wheezing and congested so they offered to do a saline breathing treatment to break up all the congestion so we did that. It helped until about 3am but then he sounded almost as bad as before.

They're officially calling it "bronchiolitis" and it's viral (Dr. Eastham was right) so there's really no treatment just keeping him sucked out until he feels better (typically 7-10 days). It is contagious so we'll be keeping him quarantined as best we can until he's better so hopefully Caroline won't catch it).
We got home around 1am and I finally got everyone down at 115am and the humidifier hooked up in the nursery. Both babies were up screaming at 3am so I fed them and they slept til just now (6am). Carter sounds awful right now (all congested and snotty) but I'm trying to wait til I feed them at 7am to suction him out b/c he's going to freak (and probably wake everyone in the house) when I do it.
Caroline (knock on wood was "cool as a cucumber" when I got home so she'll be going to daycare tomorrow (ugh, today I mean).
All in all, I'm glad we went. They were very thorough and definitely put us at ease. They didn't charge us while we were there (I'm sure I'll get a bill) but even with a $100 copay it was worth it to get the reassurance that he's ok.
Well, that's my update. What a night.
Elizabeth L. Scogins
"Bloom where you're planted..."
www.scogins.com
Sent from my fabulous iPhone!