Changes are a comin

I finished my last post talking about how exhausted I was Thursday night.  Well … have to say it just got worse from there.  Manny did HORRIBLY all night long.  He was going in and out of respiratory distress and even with oxygen, I couldn’t keep his saturation levels high enough.  He then topped out at a 104.1 oral temp.  I couldn’t protect his airway. 

Friday morning the ENT’s nurse called to check on us and I told her about the night.  She suggested strongly that I take him to the hospital … just in case.  I called the pediatrician (who knows Manny and me well) to pick her brain and see if there was any other things I could be doing (like medicines, etc) to keep him out of the hospital.  She said no. 

Meanwhile, Kaley was still sick.  Mom came by with a plan.  She would take ALL the kids so I could go to the hospital.  And this way, all the sickos had a mom to nurture them.  Plus, this freed Dan (hubby) up to help me out.  I had my 3pm dental appointment for my last step of the dental implant.  And that’s only a couple of miles from the hospital.  So Dan drove us.  It was fast enough that we still had time to grab a bite.  (It was 3:30pm and I hadn’t had any breakfast or lunch yet.)  We stopped at Chili’s and I even had enough leftovers for a late dinner.  Then Dan helped schlep our stuff from the van to the hospital.  Wow!  So very nice.  Normally I would have just skipped the dental appointment and food and headed straight to the hospital.  But because Mom took the kids, Dan could come with me and helped me out. 

And Manny was doing great.  Fever had broken.  Yes he was choking and needing suctioning often … but we had our suction machine with us. 

So we were home for 2 nights.  (sigh)

Friday night … mostly uneventful.  Until 2am.  Then he went into respiratory distress .  Major sweating, retracting, flaring, desatting.  Eventually the suctioning, breathing treatments and repositioning all worked.  He went back to breathing well.  He desatted a few other times after that but it wasn’t a huge deal and he popped right back up to normal. 

His labs are “off”.  There are some concerning things to me … there’s an acute thing but also what I think is a chronic issue.  I hope I’m wrong, because if I’m right, he has a new pretty serious diagnosis coming.  So please be wrong!

Saturday has been quite uneventful.  I’m just exhausted.  (Understatement). 

ENT says that hopefully he will clear this current infection and be on the mend because she is concerned about how to protect his airway.  If he doesn’t get ahead of this quickly he will continue to have breathing issues and eventually fatigue.  Or we could take his tonsils but how can we protect his airway then when he did so horribly with his adenoid removal?  So … either way … it’s complicated.  (What’s new?)

The only other thing going on is an epiphany.  Not sure what all it entails and how it will play out but suffice to say I am going to need help.  Years ago Dan and I heard a phase: Don’t make permanent decision based on temporary circumstances.  But I realized … we’re doing the opposite as it comes to Manny’s care.  I know that’s vague but we live from one crisis moment to the next.  We are in survival mode.  Not sure how to fix that but it’s going to have to!  Trust me, this won’t be the last time this conversation comes up. 

Changes are a comin