A Case of the Wheezers

Here's a story of a lovely little man and all of his breathing troubles. Let me recap the past few months and then I will fill you in on the past 48 hours.

In February we noticed that Lucas was having trouble breathing. He was wheezing and it seemed that he shouldn't have been working so hard to breath. We decided to take him to Urgent Care because it was past office hours at the pediatricians. The doctor there said that it might be bronchitis. He was prescribed some prednisone. It worked a little bit, but the wheezing continued.

A couple of days later, we then took him to the pediatrician. Lucas had a chest x-ray to check for pneumonia. The chest x-ray came back fine and he was diagnosed as a mild case of RSV. He was given a prescription of albuterol given via a nebulizer. We did this every 4 hours for 2 weeks. He did great! We thought we had kicked it. Boy were we wrong. We traveled to Colorado and returned home.

As we returned so did the wheezing. We took him back to the pediatrician. She prescribed him some more prednisone and we continued the albuterol treatments. He didn't seem to be getting better. So we returned a few days later for what seemed like our weekly trip to the doctor. Same doctor, same nurse, same room... We were starting to get worn down.

We then began to think it wasn't RSV that it might be allergies. As most of you know, Arizona is a desert. Made of "dirt, dirt and more dirt." The wind has been blowing, the rain has been coming and everything is blooming. The allergy season is NUTS!!! She then prescribed pulmacort which is to be given 2 times via the nebulizer for as long as he needs it. Again, he SEEMED to be getting better. She also put in a referral to a pulmonologist and for us to get an upper GI test done. Which WAS scheduled for May 12th. See below why is WAS scheduled for that date.

This is now where we start our ADVENTURE of the past 48 hours. Sunday night Lucas was doing well. He was a little wheezy so we gave him the pulmacort as usual along with the albuterol. Usually this does the trick and he gets better. Well... not this time. Monday we gave him the same dose in the morning before I took Lucas to work and dropped him off with his Aunt Lori. He was wheezy with Lori during the day and was just seemed uncomfortable. When Matt picked him up, he brought him home and gave him another dose of albuterol. Then before bed we did the double dose again. He was happy, eating normal, but just struggling to breath comfortably. He had a rough night of sleep. He kept waking up and coughing and wheezing a little.

Then came 4:30 am and Lucas woke up with the worst wheeze and was breathing so hard that he was sucking under his rib cage. NOT A GOOD SIGN. We gave him a double treatment right away. While we were giving his treatment we were debating ER or pediatrician. ER or pediatrician. Finally we decided ER. I called in for a sub and wrote sub plans. Matt called in for a sub and wrote sub plans. We then took off for TMC's ER. Here is the schedule as follows:

6:00 am - Check in. Are taken back right away. He gets his pulse ox taken and it is a 92. This is good. It is scary when it dips into the 80's.

6:30 am - The doctor on call listens to his lungs and said that he sounds fine, but the wheezing isn't good.

7:00 am - He is given 1 dose of albuterol by a very nice respiratory therapist. She was very gentle with him and he took it like a champ.

7:15 am - The respiratory therapist comes back and he is given 2 more doses of albuterol. Again, he took it like a champ.

7:30 am - Lucas is given a dose of prednisone. Still wheezing. By the way, prednisone is awful. It smells awful and tastes even worse.

8:00 am - We are told that we are being admitted, but we need to wait for a room in peds.

9:00 am - Chest x-ray is taken.

12:00 pm - We are finally taken to our room. Yes... for those of you who have been calculating. We were in the ER for roughly 6 hours. Good times.

12:05 pm - A rush of people come flooding into the room. A doctor, the respiratory therapist, a nurse, a tech, a few residents... You can only imagine how CRAZY things were at that time. The doctor is asking Matt questions and I am giving Lucas a treatment. Several people are listening to his chest, Lucas is crying because he is hungry and tired. It was the most insane 15 minutes ever.

12:30 pm - Things settle down. Lucas gets to eat and takes a nap. Yay! A little bit of relaxation. Matt ran out to get lunch. Luke and I slept for a little bit.

3:00 pm - A different doctor comes in and asks a bunch of questions about Lucas' history. Again, we repeat the same information over and OVER. But we do convince him to schedule his upper GI test for while we are here versus next week. Matt runs home to get us stuff for the night and Lucas and I take another little nap.

5:00 pm - The pulmonologist comes. She is AWESOME!!! She listens to his chest, gets the history of the wheezing, gives us information about what she believes is the cause. Finally some answers. She believes it is asthma. She looked at the chest x-ray and his lungs show that it looks to asthma. She still wants to do the upper GI test. This was to test for 3 things: 1. Is his respiratory anatomy formed correctly or is there are blockage somewhere? 2. Is there something wrapped around his bronchial tubes which would cause the wheezing? OR 3. Is he refluxing and the liquid is going somewhere it shouldn't which would cause the wheezing? Also, during this time, Lucas gets another dose of albuterol. Afterward, she listens to his lungs and decides that the albuterol via the nebulizer isn't working and changes his medication. He is now on flonase and albuterol via inhalers and prednisone. This is a faster and more effective way of getting the medication into his lungs.

6:00 pm - Everyone leaves. We give Lucas a bottle and some food. He settles down and goes to sleep.

7:00 pm - Matt leaves to get my mom from the airport and Lucas and I sleep.

9:00 pm - Matt returns with my mom. Yay! Grandma is here. My mom and I stay with Lucas over night. Matt goes home to take care of Husker and to get things for us for tomorrow. Most importantly... STARBUCKS!

10 pm to 5:30 am - The rotation goes like this nurse comes in and checks on us, hour goes by, tech comes in and takes Lucas' blood pressure and temperature, hour goes by, the respiratory therapist comes in and gives him a treatment, an hour goes by and the nurse comes back in... I think I got a total of 3 hours sleep. Good times. Oh and by the way, Lucas was not allowed to eat after 3 am because of the upper GI test so throw in a feeding at 2:45 am.

5:30 - A resident comes in and checks on Lucas. He says that Lucas is sounding a lot better which I agree. We are now on treatments every 4 hours which means we get to go home today as long as he is doing well.

6:30 am - Another resident comes in and lets us know that Lucas is first on the list for the upper GI test at 8 am. YAY!

7:00 am - We spend the next hour entertaining Lucas because he is HUNGRY! We play peek-a-boo, we dance, we sing, ... we do anything that we can think of to keep him from thinking about food because he can't eat until the upper GI test at 8.

8:00 am - We have a cranky, hungry baby who wants to eat NOW! We get taken to the radiology department for the GI test. Lucas is eyeballing his bottle the whole way there and can't wait to get his mouth around it. We all get strapped into our protective armor. And here is where things get a little hard. Lucas has to be strapped to a board. His head gets strapped, his chest, his abdomen and his legs. This is to ensure that he doesn't move during the test and that they can rotate him on the board without him falling. This is hard for a parent to see. Especially when your child is screaming because he is hungry AND strapped down. Finally the doctor comes in and we think we get to feed him his bottle. Oh no! He has to drink that barium first. We thought we would be able to mix it with his formula. We were wrong... Lucas is a champ and drinks the barium under protest. The good news from all of this is that his anatomy looks good and the test looks good. YAY!

8:30 am - We return to the room with an unhappy baby who is starving for real food. But... we have to give him another treatment.

9 am - Finally, we give him a bottle and he crashes immediately. Matt takes my mom to the house so she can shower and rest. Lucas and I sleep.

10 am - A doctor comes and says that we get to go home and should be discharged soon.

12:30 pm - Lucas is given his last treatment at the hospital.

1:00 pm - We are finally headed home! YAY!

It has been a long 48 hours. We are tired, but glad that we have some answers. We know right now that it is asthma. Some of you might be thinking, what if he is labeled as asthmatic. How will this effect him in the future with insurance? Well with the new healthcare plan (whether you are a fan of it or not) he cannot be denied insurance. Also, as long as this course of treatment works and he gets better we have figured out the wheezing. If it continues we go back to the pulmonologist for further tests. We are really hoping that this works. We have a follow up appointment tomorrow with his pediatrician. Then we go to the pulmonologist in a couple of weeks for another follow up and to make an action plan for the future. Lucas is sleeping peacefully in his crib, I am heading to bed and we are looking forward for a good night of sleep. For now enjoy these pictures of Lucas and video of him in the hospital.