A Very Sad Day

Last Wednesday Cameron had a runny nose. That was no big surprise to me because Dallin had contracted a small cold and his nose had been running for a few days.

It was a different story on Thursday.

I woke up to a sick baby. He was fussy and it seemed like his breathing was unusually fast and wheezy. It seemed like as the day wore on his breathing became more and more labored. I called Darin and told him that he needed to come home so that we could take him to the urgent care. We loaded up the babies and after an hour wait, Cameron was seen by the doctor. She told us that she didn't like how he was breathing and that we should take him immediately to the ER. She recommended that we take him to a children s hospital in the middle of Jacksonville. She told us that it probably wasn't serious enough to take an ambulance, but we needed to get him there right away.

We finally arrived at the hospital and after an initial examination they quickly begun breathing treatments. Those treatments weren't as effective as they would have liked and so they x-rayed his chest and tested him for RSV. Thankfully the chest x-rays didn't show pneumonia the RSV test came back negative. After waiting there for hours they diagnosed him with bronchiolitis.

Since we are away from family and don't know anybody in Jacksonville we had to not only take care of Cameron, but look after Dallin and keep him occupied as well. After being at the hospital for hours, they told us that they would need to keep Cameron overnight to give him more treatments and monitor his breathing.

By the time that we actually got to the hospital room it was after 11:30. Dallin was asleep in his car seat and Cameron was very miserable and did not want to be put down. We finally decided that Darin and Dallin would go home and try and get as much rest as possible and I would stay with Cameron.

They left to go home and the nurse hooked Cameron up to all sorts of little monitors. Much to his enjoyment and my dismay there were "fun" cords all over him. It took a substantial effort to make sure they were not all promptly ripped off. By the time the nurses left us to sleep it was 12:30ish. Cameron actually slept fine and he enjoyed all of the attention from mommy and the other nurses and doctors at the hospital.

I was especially grateful that he didn't need an IV. I was concerned when he didn't really seem interested in breakfast. I tried to breastfeed him and he refused so I tried to feed him some mashed bananas. I only got him to eat a couple of spoonfuls. He was coughing a lot and when I was holding him he threw up all over me. I changed Cameron into the outfit he was wearing the previous day but I didn't have any extra clothes to change into. I just had to wait for Darin to come and bring me some extra clothes. Nasty. After he cleared out his stomach contents on me, he was once again interested in eating.

Darin called in sick from work and came with Dallin as soon as he could. They continued to monitor him and make sure that his breathing was stable. It was really sad for us to see him hooked up to all of the monitors, but we were relieved that he had improved a great deal.

Thankfully that evening we returned home and he has continued to do a lot better. He and Dallin are back getting into mischief and enjoying life. That was so scary. It really makes you realize how blessed you are when your kids are healthy and happy. Sometimes I take that blessing for granted. I know that there are some people whose kids are in the hospital for days and months at a time. That would take a lot of faith. My heart really goes out to those parents. I am so grateful for my beautiful boys and am so grateful that my sweet Cameron is well again.