Things Are Not Looking Good for Owain

And I am getting frustrated.

Last night the ER doc thought he had an ear infection, but the doctor on call came in and said no ear infection. His pediatrician came in this morning and said that at least one ear was infected and the other one was red and swollen. That explains the fever at night, but he has had no fever since early this morning.

His RSV test came back negative. Not sure if I mentioned that earlier.

He is miserable.

He has croup again with O2 sats in the low 80’s last night and through this morning. In the past couple of hours I have pretty much been listing to his O2 alarm go off. In the ER last night we were down to 1/2 liter of oxygen, but by this morning he was up to 1 liter, then 1 1/2 liters and now we just increased it to 2 liters. And he is still dropping down around 77.

And they just came in and increased his oxygen to 3 liters.

Sigh.

The steroids they gave him for his croup has made him miserable, unbearably so. Flailing, kicking, “hold me mommy” “stop touching me mommy” “cuddle me mommy” “STOP it mommy”. Back and forth. He has no idea what he wants. I got him some Tylonol a few hours ago and that helped just long enough to help him settle down and fall asleep. I got to sleep for about 45 minutes and we both could have slept for much longer. But then respiratory came in and woke us up for his Xopenex treatment. Which did nothing for him and now he is just as miserable, but on 3 liters of O2.

We can’t figure out why he is on breathing treatments, a strong steroid to help his croup, antibiotics for he ear infection and fluids because he didn’t want to eat or drink anything…and STILL has low oxygen.

This morning they took him off of O2 and he dropped down to 72% on room air. I don’t even want to guess what he is at right now.

He smiled at me for a brief moment when his nurse gave him a popsicle, but after 4-5 bites, he was done. It was good to see him smile though.

For the most part, he has been staring glassy eyed at the Toy Story movies that I remembered to pack when he is not crying and begging for me to either do something for him, or stop doing something for him.

He is not eating and will only drink soy milk. He nibbled on a dinner roll for about 2 hours, and I had to eventually pry a crumbly mess from his fist.

He is a different kind of blue than I have seen in a very long time. Usually when he is having trouble breathing, his fingers and toes get blue. But today, he has this all over pale, dusky kind of coloring to him.

Now he is asleep, and still alarming with his O2 dropping down to 77. I just looked at the oxygen valve on the wall, it only goes up to 3.5 liters. That kind of concerns me that it looks like there is not much more we can give him.

His pediatrician will be in when office hours are over.

I think that peds cardiology over at UVa has been contacted. I don’t know if that means that they will be monitoring him from UVa or if we will be transporting him to UVa.

Either way, I am starting to get restless, frustrated and wishing that he would just wake up and get better. My heart is beating faster and I am starting to get a sinking feeling in my stomach.

Calling on my prayer buddies to help us out and send some prayers our way.