Toddler Asthma

Usually it's something that they outgrow, but right now we're in the thick of it. Eric was admitted to the hospital last Monday for the second time since September. I expected to be released the next day, but his oxygen levels dropped in his sleep to dangerously low levels and it took a lot of oxygen and albuterol to keep them normal. The nurses and residents hovered around our bed in the dark throughout the night. In my exhaustion I thought we had been abducted by aliens. This trip to the hospital coincided with some of the first deep sleep I've been able to get since I got pregnant again. For the last few months, I've been sneezing through the nights, or getting up to pee every 30 seconds. Suddenly now, for no explicable reason I've been sleeping soundly again.

Cambridge Hospital doesn't have a pediatric pulmonologist. We didn't get to see one until Thursday night. By then we were ready to fight to get taken to Mass General or to Childrens. During my limited contact with the outside world I realized that there would be much better hospitals for such an extended stay. So, on Thursday night we agreed that we'd either go to MGH or go home on Friday.

Rich was grumping around saying "Let my people go!" I said you can't really say that unless you're Jewish. He shrugged and said, "My people are Jewish." Fair enough... Fair enough.

The pumonologist came on Thursday night and took Eric off the albuterol, changed a few other things, and voila! He got through the night without oxygen. He came back the next day and released us around noon.

So, he's been at school all week. Two of his teachers came to see us while we were in the hospital. I finally realized the point of a cooperative daycare center. Yes, it's a real pain in the ass time committement. But DAMN, when the sh*t hits the fan, these folks come through for you. Another family came to see us as well. The year is still new, and we are slowly becoming friends with other parents. However I think this accelerated a few frienships we would have wanted to have.

Rich is on a business trip to Burlington Vermont. Thank God, he'll be back tomorrow. I've been a single mom since Tuesday evening. Every day when I manage to get me and Eric out the door fully clothed, I want to ring my neighbors doorbells and say "Look what I did! We're dressed and fed and it's before 8:30 AM!"

We spent two nights in the new house, then Eric had an asthma attack that landed us in the hospital until Friday. It was mostly under control during the day, but his oxygen levels would drop in the night requiring worried nurses to worry around our bed and hook oxygen tubes together to blow in his face.

It was scary. But eventually after a pediatric pulmonologist came by and changed his regimen, he got through the night without oxygen and they finally sent us home. But we still have to nebulize him at least twice a day, sometimes more, depending on how he sounds.

But we're just glad to have our boy home.

I may do a longer post later about why I'll never go to Cambridge Hospital again, but I'm a little to exhausted to re-live the whole thing in detail at the moment.