{"id":603,"date":"2020-03-31T11:43:54","date_gmt":"2020-03-31T16:43:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/capenotrequired.com\/?p=603"},"modified":"2020-04-25T09:23:08","modified_gmt":"2020-04-25T14:23:08","slug":"first-trip-to-the-er","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/capenotrequired.com\/first-trip-to-the-er\/","title":{"rendered":"First Trip to the ER"},"content":{"rendered":"
December 10, 2009<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The day after Thanksgiving (2009) James had an appointment with his pediatrician and got 3 vaccinations: Rotavirus<\/a>, Hib (Haemophilus influenza type b)<\/a> and IPV (Inactivated polio vaccine)<\/a>. By Saturday James had mucus constantly running out of his nose. For a while, we just couldn\u2019t keep up with suctioning; it was just too much! We put James to bed around 9:00 pm with a little runny nose.<\/p>\n At 1:00 am Sunday morning Stacy got up to feed him as she normally did. She gave him a little suction in the nose and mouth and came back to bed. At 2:00 am she was up again to take down his feed. (Side note: this is one benefit of being tube fed. You can eat while you sleep!)<\/em> James\u2019 sats (oxygen saturation of the blood) were in the high 80s and low 90s. She tried to suction his nose and mouth, but was not getting much out. His sats were slowly dropping. By 5:30 am we decided to put him on a little bit of oxygen. (Because of his medical issues, we were provided with oxygen tanks from our home health provider.)<\/em> Stacy went back to bed while I stayed up with him. When Stacy got up again at 10:30 am, we decided to call the pediatrician and take him to the ER.<\/p>\n One thing we learned pretty quick is that when you bring a baby into the ER on oxygen, you skip to the front of the line. We were immediately taken to a room where they started to assess him. Because he was in respiratory distress, they tried Atrovent<\/a>, which is a bronchodilator that relaxes muscles in the airways and increases flow to the lungs. They took a chest x-ray which looked clear. Because of the H1N1 pandemic<\/a> going on at the time, they tested James for the virus, but the preliminary results came back negative. They sent him up to the PICU (Pediatric Intensive Care Unit).<\/p>\n After further assessment in the PICU they thought James had a respiratory or viral infection and started him on an antibiotic, but was stopped because his blood panel came back normal. He had a fever so they gave him rectal Tylenol to try to bring it down. His stomach was very distended, so they used his g-tube and extension to relieve some of the air and gas that was built up in his belly from breathing so rapidly. They had him on up to 4 liters of oxygen trying to keep his sats up.<\/p>\n On Monday, James was given another chest x-ray and this one showed that he did develop pneumonia in the right lobe and was put on another antibiotic. He was given saline solution and Pedialyte because he was dehydrated. They did a renal ultrasound to see if his kidneys were working right and if there were any blockages because his blood pressure was so high. The ultrasound came back fine with no problems or obstructions. He tested positive for RSV, or Respiratory Syncytial Virus<\/a>. According to WebMD, \u201cRespiratory syncytial virus<\/a>\u00a0(RSV<\/a>) is a common, and very contagious, virus that infects the respiratory tract of most children before their second birthday. For most babies and young children, the infection causes nothing more than a\u00a0cold. But for a small percentage, infection with\u00a0RSV\u00a0<\/a>can lead to serious, sometimes life-threatening problems such as pneumonia or bronchiolitis, an\u00a0inflammation\u00a0of the small airways of the\u00a0lungs.\u201d This really kind of pissed us off. Our pediatrician recommended a medication, palivizumab<\/a>, that could have prevented RSV<\/a>, but our insurance company denied it because he didn\u2019t fit the criteria. We\u2019re not really sure what that criteria is or if they just denied it because they were still trying to swallow the large bill from James\u2019 two months in the NICU<\/a>.<\/p>\n