On Sunday 13th of June Oliver had symptoms of a cold. He had a runny nose that just wouldn't stop running. But having said that, he slept really well, he was eating all his food, he was really happy when awake, laughing and smiling and interacting with people so I was not worried at all. In the late afternoon he started a little wheeze but again we weren't too worried. I had been to the doctor with Oliver for the same symptoms 4 times already and was always told it was just a cold and that it would just have to run it's course. Oliver went down to sleep that night without a problem but around 11pm he started this really heavy shrilling cough. It lasted all night and he did not sleep at all. So we spent an all nighter trying to console him, but even at this stage we weren't too worried, he didn't seem to distressed, he was just coughing and refusing to sleep. Craig had called his Mum in the morning, she usually looks after Oliver on Monday's when I go to work, but considering the fact that I hadn't slept all night there was no way I could go into work, and he thought it may be better that she come here and look after him while I had a quick sleep. Whilst I waited for her to come Oliver was grumbly and whingy and I could not put him down at all, he just wanted to be held. When Amie arrived he stopped crying and gave her a big smile (cheekly little man). By this stage I thought he wasn't really acting like it was just a cold and maybe I should get him checked out just in case. So luckily I was able to get an appointment straight away, and off we went.
Sometimes I wonder why you bother making an appointment with a doctor, because you always seem to end up waiting for at least 30 minutes. But on this day I wonder it if was a good thing that we did have to wait. Had we gone in straight away Oliver wouldn't have been terribly whingy and maybe we may have been told to go home as it was just a cold, but as we waited and waited for our turn, Oliver got worse and worse and couldn't even be consoled by me. So by the time we got into the doctors office he wouldn't even calm down enough to be checked out properly, he couldn't check his ears, Oliver wouldn't open his mouth long enough, through all that crying I wonder how the doctor could even hear his chest when he checked. He said that he was pretty sure it was viral but he wanted us to go to Princess Margaret Hospital (PMH) to get it checked out. So off we went to PMH. I still to this day can't believe how quickly Oliver went downhill. Just in the half an hour drive it took us to get there (because we had to endure peek our traffic) he went from breathing perfectly normal to really struggling to breath. And the crying, oh my gosh, he cried the whole way there. I feel so sorry for Amie who had to sit in the back with him and try to calm him down with no success at all. Before we left I had called Craig to let him know we were on the way to the hospital but not to worry to come as it was just precautionary and he was fine. Whoops.
When we got there there was actually a line of cars to get into Emergency. I thought that this was going to be hell and we would be waiting for hours. Then there was a line of cars trying to get out of the car park to leave Emergency. Amie jumped out with Oliver and took him in whilst I tried to get parking. I tried for 45 minutes to get parking!!!!!!!! It was horrible knowing my child was in emergency struggling to breath and I couldn't find parking anywhere. They really need to do something about the parking situation there. I know they never will because it's right next to the city and too many people taking the parking for work purposes but it was bad. I ended up parking far away for some horrific amount and running back to the hospital. Luckily they took Oliver in straight away and Amie did all the triage information for me, so by the time I got there they just had to ask a few more questions. When I saw him he was sucking in so heavily, his belly was sinking in and it was so horrible seeing my little man like that. It reminded me of when my little brother used to get his Asthma really bad, his stomach used to do that too. So I then called Craig and said, "ummm yeah, you better come". I always do that to the poor guy, make him stay home and tell him everything' going to be ok, when really I should just tell him to come in the first place. They told me it was bronchiolitis which is the most common illness amongst babies all over the world, and it was nothing to worry about and there was nothing they could give him to make it go away as it was a virus, but that usually a baby peaks between days 3 and 5 and because he was only day 2 that they wanted to keep him in for observation. At this point they had said that his oxygen levels were ok and that he wouldn't need any oxygen but they would monitor him upstairs.
So we went up to the wards where we were given our own room as Oliver had to be in isolation because it's extremely contagious and pretty much as soon as we got there the nurses said he wasn't getting enough oxygen and would have to be put on oxygen with the nasal prongs. Poor little darling, he was not impressed but just too tired to really fight it. In the mean time Oliver just couldn't be settled for longer than 10 minutes. He would whinge and whinge and whinge until someone picked him up. I could rock him to sleep in my arms and put him down for a sleep but then he would wake up 5-10 minutes later and we would start all over again. This went on for many many hours. Oliver's oxygen still wasn't high enough and they started about talking about putting him in an oxygen box. A box that went over his body and enclosed him in, from the waste up. I was really hoping that this wouldn't have to happen. They checked his carbon dioxide levels in his body as they weren't sure he was getting rid of it and they came back to say that they were too high and that if it didn't get better then he would have to go down to ICU. At this stage they also decided that because he hadn't eaten or drank pretty much anything all day that he would have to get fluids in another way. They asked us in the emergency room whether we would be happy to be part of a CRIB study to find out which was of delivering fluids, if necessary, was best. For example nasal gastric tube or via IV. They said that both of them were equally as evasive and both had their pros and cons but they wanted to see if one helped with quicker recovery than the other. The method they would use on Oliver, if necessary, would be picked completely randomly, pretty much they would toss a coin. I was fine with it, both of the methods sounded terrible to me, we asked every doctor and nurse that came to talk to us which they thought was the better option and none of them could say that one was less evasive or better than the other, so we decided to take part of the study. So when they decided he needed to have fluids another way I was actually really relieved when they came and said that it was to be delivered via IV. I know that they both are apparently the same but for some reason the thought of a tube down the throat seems a lot worse than a drip. Maybe because I have had a drip many a time. But then when watching them put the drip in it was so hard, because babies have these little tiny veins and it took her about 20 minutes just to find one. Oliver was so brave, he didn't cry at all whilst they put the drip in. He was just so good. After they put in the drip they also checked his carbon dioxide levels in his body as they weren't sure he was getting rid of it. To do this they needed to prick his heel and get a small tube of blood. Unfortunately they couldn't use the blood from the vein so they couldn't take the blood from the IV site which would have been much easier. They tested it and they came back to say that they were too high and that if it didn't get better then he would have to go down to ICU. To top it all off, throughout the day they kept telling me to understand he was going to get worse as he was only day two and that the worst days are between days three to five.
They were worried about the fact that I have quite a strong history of asthma in our family, and even though they cannot diagnose asthma in a child until after 12 months old they thought they would try some ventoline, which they gave to him I think every 20 minutes. This made him so jittery and shakey. They then decided that he was still working too hard to get the oxygen and that it was time to use the oxygen box. His head was bopping a lot, which is sign that he was really struggling. They put him in the oxygen box, his tummy was sucking in deep on both sides, he had a trachea tug which was causing a sucking in where is through is, his head was bopping around whilst trying to breath and he looked like he was having a fit because of the ventoline, and all whilst he was stuck in a box where I couldn't hold him, and yet here I am having to understand that he is going to get worse than this. After a while of him being in the box they came back and pricked his heel to test his carbon dioxide levels again, and this time they came back worse. They told us they needed to do an xray to check to see if maybe he had a collapsed lung and then they would have to take him down to ICU where he could be monitored more closely. Luckily the xray came back ok with no evidence of a collapsed lung. We packed up all our stuff and headed down to ICU.
When we got there there one of the nurse was very good at getting rid of us so they could do their stuff. She said she would show us to our accomodation where we had our own room with a double bed and bathroom. By the time we had put our bags down and got back to ICU they had him hooked up to everything the needed. They had him on the CPAP oxygen, they use this time of oxygen on premature babies. It has big tubes coming out of his nose and he had to wear a cap so that the cap could hold down the oxygen. He had the ECG monitors attached to his chest, a drip on his left leg and another monitor attached to his right foot. My poor little man looked like a trauma patient. And yet they keep telling us that he was going to get worse. I couldn't understand how he could get worse, to me worse was dead. I asked them if he was going to be ok and that he wasn't going to die and all they would say is that they had the next step planned out if they need it. In my head all I could think was "what does that mean?!?!?! how many more steps do you have planned out?!?!?!?!" but I needed to try and keep calm for my little man. Oliver's heart rate was just under 200 beats per minute, his temperature was just under 40 degrees celsius and his oxygen was still just in the 80's. Nothing was looking terribly good.
And if it wasn't all bad enough, but if you look up at the back of the room he was in and read the labels on the drawers you would see that one of the drawers was labeled "the bereavement drawer and christening gown". So if you ever needed a reminder that kids died in this place, there it was staring you in the face. I reckon they should probably not have that drawer labeled. Oliver didn't get any better during the night. By this stage I had only managed about 2 hours sleep in over 48 hours. Oliver's nurse was really really nice and very accommodating to me who would not leave his side. But then she went on break and another nurse (older and more pushy) came to look after him and she made me go and have a sleep. She practically pushed me out the door. She told me that I need to eat and sleep because when he got out of ICU I would be the one who had to look after him and would not have a nurse sitting in on him the whole time. But what she didn't understand was "I WASN'T TIRED!!!!" still she forced me out the door, I went and found Craig and cried and told him that the mean nurse was making me go to sleep, and he told me it was for the best. So my condition of sleep was that he would have to keep an eye on Oliver and come in and update me every hour, which he did :O)After 3 hours sleep I was awake again and Craig had come to me with news that he had gotten a little worse and that they were not thinking of intubating him as he wasn't getting better. I knew I should never had gone to sleep, I felt like it was my fault for leaving his side. I know that the outcome would have been the same had I had stayed awake but I hated myself for leaving him in that condition so I could get some sleep. I rang Mum in tears and asked her to come to the hospital for some support. They put it off for the doctors on the next shift to make that decision. When that doctor came in he decided that they wouldn't be intubating him and that he wanted to try another asthma drug through his IV first, I can't really remember the name of this one, but this didn't work either. The doctor then decided to try some steroids, which they started just before lunch time.
We had so many visitors throughout the day, and I felt that maybe Oliver may have needed a little time by himself to try and rest as he wasn't sleeping and this wasn't helping him get better. So I made the call for all of us to go downstairs and have some lunch and that way the nurses could do their thing and Oliver would hopefully get some sleep. Well when we got back I went in with someone (sorry can't remember who it was) and there was little Oliver without the CPAP oxygen on and with a hi-flo oxygen which was less invasive. It was nice seeing him without the big massive tubes, and then the magic words came out of the nurses mouth "would you like to jump in the bed and hold him?" I don't think I could have got in that bed any quicker. I couldn't believe that in the space of 3o minutes, whilst we were having lunch, they changes his oxygen and he was well enough for me to hold him. The nurse that was on at the time spoke to the doctor and said that because the pressure wasn't working on the C PAP oxygen, due to Oliver not breathing through his nose, that maybe they should make him more comfomortable and put him on the hi-flo because he was getting really bothered with the C PAP and not resting. So they changed him over whilst we were downstairs. Now I can't tell you what it was that made him turn the corner. But it seems that the combination of steroids, change of oxygen and me being able to hold Oliver really helped him get better. He slept in my arms for an hour before I had to get up, then Mum took over from me and he slept in her arms. So he got heaps of rest. And that was it, as quickly as he got sick he started getting better. Everything was going well, all his stats starting coming down and before we know it they were giving him less and less oxygen. That night both Craig and I went to bed and had a good 6 hours sleep. When I woke up and went to his room, he was awake and playing with a mobile that the nurse hung above his bed. As soon as I walked through the door he looked at me, held his arms out and cried for me to pick him up. I was so happy to see him so aware of his surroundings. The nurse said he was really good all night and that he hadn't cried at all and slept for most of the night.
That morning when the doctors came in and did their rounds (seriously, like they do on Gray's Anatomy haha) they were all talking about him and saying it was a miraculous recovery. They seem to think it was the steroids which may have done it but cannot be certain. Oliver was discharged from ICU and taken back up to the wards. They took out his drip but kept him on the oxygen, but turning it down more and more. We spent the night there and he did really well with his breathing. The next morning they took him off the oxygen all together and we were told as long as he did one long sleep and his stats stay up then we could go home that afternoon. And that's exactly what we did. So the doctors think there is an underlying issue of asthma which caused him to go downhill so quickly. We not have an asthma plan which he has to have a steroid twice a day until around September. They just want to see how this goes and get him through winter with all the winter colds around. We also have a ventolin we are supposed to give to him at the sign of wheezing, but luckily he hasn't been sick since we have been out of hospital and we have not had to use it as yet. xxfingers crossedxx. We have a follow up appointment with the pediatrician this month and will also be having a follow up appointment with the asthma specialist. We are really hoping that he doesn't have asthma, but that is out of our control for now and at least it can be controlled.
So that's it for now. If you saw Oliver today, or even a week ago, you would not have known at all that he was in hospital. He is so happy and laughing and healthy and we are so glad that it is all over. It kind of feels like a dream now.
A big thank you to all our family and friends all over the world who prayed for Oliver and who sent us their well wishes whilst we were in hospital. It was a rough time for us, but it means so much to have such beautiful family and friends around us.
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