Back to REALITY!

Let's just say the real world has slapped us in the face since we have gotten home from our nice relaxing 6 day vacation to Bermuda! When we arrived home Landry had the stomach virus. That was not fun and let's just say we went through some diapers to put it nicely. After 6 FULL days of battling that he was finally getting better. But my sweet little boy loves to share with mommy...so you guessed it. I got the stomach virus literally the day after he was getting over it. This didn't come at very good timing. Somehow Austin always escapes getting sick-I am determined that he has the best immune system of anyone I know and I feel like I have the worst!
Well every year we go to the Lake and have a family reunion that has been a tradition for about 5 years now. And not only do we have a family reunion but Martha, Chris, Nora and Wyatt were coming into town and we haven't seen them in 7 MONTHS!! Well I decided to go anyways because I was feeling better but I just knew I would take it easy and relax. Thankfully by Saturday I was back to normal but as luck would have it all day Saturday Landry just wasn't his happy go lucky self. He was being real fussy and clingy and not eating very much. This is never a good sign but I just thought maybe he wasn't completely over the stomach bug so didn't think much of it. Saturday night he DID NOT sleep-and with us being at the lake and all 3 of us sleeping in 1 room that means all 3 of us didn't sleep! I attempted to put him in bed with us(WHICH I NEVER DO-just to try to get some rest b/c remember I was battling the virus Landry shared with me) and that worked a little better but not really. He just couldn't seem to get comfortable no matter what position he was in. So at 12:00am I got up and held him all night in the rocking chair he started to sound very congested and seemed to have a hard time breathing though his nose. At 4:30 I finally laid him back down in his pack-n-play and tried to get some rest. He woke up at 5:30 and then was up for good at 6:15. Thankfully Austin got up with him and let me get some rest so I slept in till 9:00. It's just impossible to sleep at the lake with all the fun you know you are missing out on. So long story made longer Landry was not feeling good at all Sunday morning. We always have a family church service on Sunday mornings when we stay at the lake and we headed out to go see a doctor as soon as it was over.(Just as a side note I always envision our family church service is what heaven will be like. There is nothing better than being crammed in a single room singing songs and worshipping the Lord with your whole family right next to you. It's so intimate and personal and I have really grown to love that part of the lake more than anything else we do there. The only thing that would make it better is is Austin's side of the family were there with us also-we are still working on a weekend that works with them to get them down there with us.) So anyways back to Landry's story. We head home as soon as church is over to take him straight to the doctor b/c I just had that "mother's instinct" that something was going on. About 5 minutes after we left he starts screaming bloody murder in his car seat and nothing is making him happy. So we pull over on the side of the road and I take him out and hold him for a minute and he immediately lays his head on my shoulder and closes his eyes and it's when he calms down and stops screaming that I notice he isn't breathing good. It was like he was struggling for each breath. So being the nurse I am I immediately starting doing a head to toe assessment. Half way home he starts to use his stomach muscles to breathe but I was just hoping it was from where he was so upset and screaming in his car seat. I tell Austin to hurry up and get us to Columbia b/c something was wrong. I hold him in my arms the whole time we are in the car to Columbia. I was scared not only b/c he wasn't breathing good but he also wasn't in his car seat and those roads are not very safe they are very curvy and noarrow and you pass a huge truck with a big boat behind it about every 5 minutes that almost runs you off the road. Every time I tried to put him in his seat he would cry and grab at me with big wide eyes as if he was saying "PLEASE don't let go of me!" This scared me more than anything. I was shaking I was so scared and to make matters worse I knew we were more than an hour away from any sign of life and cell phone service is horrible on these back roads.
OK get this yall-we call the Pediatrician on call to let them know what's going on with him to see if we need to take him the the ER and she tells Austin "Just give him some mucinex and if he isn't better my Tuesday bring him in the to the doctor!" ARE YOU KIDDING ME LADY!! My son was having rapid shallow respiration's and you want to put him on mucinex! UGH! I am HOPING the only part she heard was "congestion" otherwise she doesn't deserve her degree! Luckily we are friends with his pediatrician and we give him a call at home on his day off and a holiday(July 4th) and he immediately tells us to bring him by his house he wants to look/listen to him before just sending us to the ER to make sure it's necessary. He listens to him for 5seconds and says "Go straight to the ER-he isn't moving air very good in his lungs-he may have pneumonia-he'll need a chest x-ray to rule it out." So off the the ER we go and by the time we get there Landry is completely INCONSOLABLE! He wouldn't quit screaming at the top of his lungs and at times it was almost as if he was delirious-he wouldn't look me in the eyes and his eyes kept rolling back in his head. We walk straight in they hook him up the O2 sat machine as soon as I told them he wasn't breathing good and his O2 sat was 87% and pulse was 190. My heart was sinking~they took us straight back to a room without making us wait for even a second and start a breathing treatment on him immediately. He finally calmed sown and was still having retractions, using accessory muscles to breath and grunting on expiration. It turns out he has upper respiratory inflammation, and double ear infection. Turns out his lungs were clear(Thank you God!) so no pneumonia! We really thought we were going to have to go back the ER again Sunday night around 8:30 b/c he wasn't breathing good again but we are lucky to have Pops as a good doctor(Thank you Pops!) and he listened to him and said he was moving air pretty good just to keep him at home and monitor him closely. He is now on steroids, antibiotics, ear drops and an albuterol inhaler. He is still having wheezing as of his doctor check up yesterday so he extended the steroids another 2 days and the inhaler another week and we go for another check up on Monday. To make all these matters worse cousins Nora and Wyatt Landry can't go around him until late Friday per doctors orders. They still aren't sure what caused all this so we wouldn't rather be safe than sorry. The last thing I want to do it get them all sick and then send them off to Wisconsin for the bomb to hit them when they are by themselves. To say this breaks my heart is an understatement! I have been looking forward to this trip since they left Tennessee the last time in December! So you can bet that Friday afternoon and all day Saturday and Sunday we are going to soak up our time with them till they leave Sunday night! Austin and I have decided that we are going to be going up to Wisconsin soon to get in a good visit since this one isn't really going to count for us-so I hope they have a room for us to stay in! :)
Please pray that the wheezing goes away and his lungs to get stronger and heal! Also-please pray for me b/c between the steroids and inhaler I have one hyper little boy on my hands all day! haha! He has been keeping me laughing lately and not even trying to! He has been so much fun! You wouldn't know he is sick now unless you heard his wheeze. I will update you when he goes back to the doctor on Monday.
That was how we spent our 4th of July-not the best but at least we live in a free country where we can go to the hospital, get medicine to get us better, and have an opportunity to take good care of our precious son of that God blessed us with! I am thankful for the courage it took those men to sign the Decleration for our independance even though it put their life and their families life in danger-that's just one of the many reasons why we are the "land of the free and home of the BRAVE!"