The Sprayberries

Nubby's First Oxygen Tent

[ty] 17 Jan '08

Over the course of the last 7 months we've become relatively accustomed to the variety of nasty excretions produced by our son because he's in daycare. He's young and building a healthy immune system doesn't come without a cost. In many respects we consider this a boon. Better chickenpox as a child than shingles as an adult for instance. So we thought nothing of it as his most recent cough turned wheezy and he became more lethargic and needy. That is, until Jordanna checked on him as she was coming to bed the other night and his breathing was strange enough that she brought him into bed with us.

Despite the fact that it was 1:30 in the morning his breathing was so strange that we lay awake listening to him discussing whether or not we were being paranoid. Eventually I decided we were not paranoid, his respiratory functions were not ok (64 breaths a minute), and we needed to take him to Urgent Care. So we loaded him into the car and tore off for UMC. Ironically I drove to the hospital very very quickly not because he was in dire straits but because we thought Urgent Care closed at 3am (it actually closes at 1am) and the difference in co-pay is significant.

Upon our arrival they rushed us into care (if you ever need to fast-track through admission write "respiratory difficulty" on your intake sheet), checked him out, and agreed that his respiration was labored and the O2 levels in his blood were too low. They put him on some oxygen and admitted him. Even sitting in a hospital and knowing that he was basically fine seeing my 9 month old son with oxygen tubes in his nose was difficult. I can't even imagine what our friend, whose child has had multiple surgeries, must go through.

We stayed in the hospital for a day and a half as they waited to see if his oxygen levels dropped again. Turns out he has RSV (a respiratory virus) and an ear infection. They were all very nice and provided us with a great deal of disposable crap. We were discharged this afternoon and Nubby has been happily eating and hydrating all day.

On the bright side he learned to hold his own bottle while in the hospital.

Here he is showing how he proudly holds his own beverage. Now he refuses to let us hold any bottles for him. Damn kids.

This is the very cool device they use to measure his blood oxygen saturation. As far as I can tell it's a light/doppler thing going on. But it just tapes onto his foot and thats it. Very nice and easy for a baby.

Mommy with her "I slept in this chair" sassy hair.

One of the nurses walked in, saw him like this, and said "Well, you're not a very sick baby now are you?"