Hospital

Well these last few days have been a little challenging for our family. Noah has been in the hospital since Sunday with pneumonia. I am so happy to say that he is doing so much better and will be able to come home this afternoon. I am so grateful for the doctors and nurses that have taken such good care of him. I am also grateful that I decided to become a nurse, this whole experience has been eye opening for me. Saturday night I worked and when I got home Justin told me he had been up all night and that he had a fever. Noah woke up and I fed him and noticed that he was still warm. Justin had given him some tylenol, so I decided to sleep for a little bit. He was acting like his normal self, smiling, happy, just warm. When I got up about two hours later Justin told me that his fever was 103. I became more concerned. He had a cough for about a week and to get a fever after being sick for a while isn't a good sign. I suspected pneumonia and called the on-call doctor to get him and appt. I took him in and we decided to get a chest x-ray. This is how you diagnose pneumonia, you can see the infection in the lungs. So we went to the hospital, got the x-ray and waited for the radiologist to read it. The PA who had seen Noah in the office finally called me a couple hours later to tell me it was pneumonia and gave me a perscription for oral antibiotics. By this point Noah was still doing okay, he was breathing a little fast, and sleepy. I got him the antibiotic and took him home. Then I layed down for a minute, I checked on Noah and in a short time, he had gotten worse. He was working really hard to breathe and had started retracting in his chest. He was also very lethargic and his fever was getting difficult to keep down. I called the office and went in to check his oxygen again. I was very worried about him, and knew he needed to be in the hospital. By the time we got to the office he was grunting and was having a hard time breathing. His oxygen levels were a little low, not terrible, but too low for me to be comfortable with. The PA said he was at the borderline and she felt like I was on top of everything and could proably care for him at home. I was not okay with that and I asked if the actual doctor could look at him. He came in and looked at Noah and said we needed to be admitted to the Hosptial. I was so realived, I knew he needed to go. So we got to the hospital and by that time he needed oxygen,some blood work, and an IV, he hadn't eaten since noon. So they had to poke him a couple of times, which was sad,and suction out his nose, which was also sad, but he did okay. It was wierd for me to be there as the mom and not the nurse. It was nice to personally know all of the staff caring for him, they did a great job. Sunday night he was still very sick and I was up all night holding him. He was very fussy, pneumonia is actually pretty painful. It hurts to breathe and cough. He recieved IV antibiotics and fluid. I should have been exhausted, but I was so worried about Noah I didn't notice that I hadn't slept in two days. Yesterday was a long day, but Noah started to feel and breathe better. And last night we finally got some sleep! It was only a couple hours at a time, but I took it. I feel so much better today and so does Noah. I really felt everyones prayers and I am so grateful for all of the concern for him. I can't believe how calm I was during the whole process, I knew what Noah needed and was able to be pretty proactive about his care. Everyone knows that I am a very anxious person, especially when it comes to my kids so, I know Heavenly Father really blessed me and helped me keep it together so that I could care for him. I have been able to do most of his care here at the hospital, all I can say is that I am so glad I am a nurse! Thanks again for all the concern and prayers. My mom and brother really helped us again, I feel so blessed to have family I can count on. I will post again when we get home! Oh and I guess I should mention how WONDERFUL Justin has been through this whole thing. He has taken great care of the girls so I can focus on Noah. He even got Taylor registered for Kindergarten yesterday. I have the best husband and my kids have the best dad!!!