RSV becomes Pneumonia

Since Stella has been in daycare, I’ve only got two calls from them, but whatever the reason, when I see the name on the caller ID my heart takes a leap. The first time they called, it was because she was going through a growing sprit and they thought they might run out of milk before the end of the day, something that could easily be taken care of. The second time was much different.

On Monday I got a call from the lovely lady who watches the infants. She informed me Stella had a rough morning, as she was crying and coughing all morning and then proceeded to vomit all her morning bottle up over herself. Then she informed me she had a fever.

Stella had been sick for three weeks, with a cold. We were in the emergency room at the beginning of those three weeks because her fever got so high, but they said it was just a virus and sent us home with the “lots of fluid and plenty of rest” remedy.

I couldn’t get off work so Michael took this one and called the doc and picked her up from daycare. According to Michael her pulse-ox (amount of oxygen in her blood) upon arrival to the doc office was in the 80%. She was rapidly breathing and grunting to get a breath. They gave her a nebulizer treatment and pulse-ox went up. Michael called to tell me the prognoses:

“So . . . don’t be worried, but . . . the doctor told me I needed to go to the hospital and check Stella into the ER”. My heart sank, I couldn’t keep the tears from coming I took a breath and tried to think. I was going to finish out the day, grab some stuff at home and head over there… YEAH, RIGHT! There was no way I was going to be able to work the rest of the day. So the wonderful secretary called in a last minute sub for me and I left.

I went home and grab things that I thought I needed: pj’s, chap-stick, contacts, toothbrush, only really hoping it wasn’t bad enough to have to stay the night.

When I got to the hospital Michael and Stella were sitting in the rocking chair of the Peds ER and rocking and singing, my heart sank again as I was so thankful to have an amazing husband to be such an amazing daddy to this little sick baby of ours. Over the period of four hours they did chest x-rays, mucus suction, nebulizer treatments, RSV check, and then they came in with the news that our baby had RSV which developed into double pneumonia (both lungs).

I cried. I bawled.

I felt guilty. I sent my sick baby to daycare; I didn’t know she was that sick, I felt like a bad mom. I felt helpless, sick. I was scared.

I made a food run for Michael and when I got back they were doing her IV. I saw my baby strapped down, screaming, scared, Michael worried and trying to calm her while they got that tiny butterfly needle into her arm. They also had her wear the oxygen tubing around her ears with the two little pieces going into her nose.

Over the course of three days she got: nebulizer treatments every four hours, antibiotics every 8 hours, a constant IV drip of fluids, and every nurse who walked through her door to fall in love with her.

Through all this, she was truly stronger than I ever was. She smiled and cooed. She played and acted like she was just fine. Her red sleepy eyes would have told you otherwise, but her smile kept me going.