Thurs. Nov. 16 (3am) to Sat. Nov. 18

Another hospital stay. After two months of things going relatively well, we found ourselves back in hospital. James had a another cold which developed into high fevers, rapid and laboured breathing. I always hate taking him to Emerge because I know he’s going to be pricked and prodded and "tortured", but in the end I decided I better take him in.

Upon arrival at the hospital I debated turning around and going home because my "oh-so-sick" little boy was bright and chipper and didn’t look "oh-so-sick", but they were waiting for us so I carried on. (We are on the hospitals chronic care list - yes, privileged people we are - and before I go to Emerge I call ahead and speak to the Pediatrician on Call.) Well James’ good spurt didn’t last that long and they got a chance to see why I had called in. We ended up staying in Emerg for 14 hours while they pricked, prodded and "tortured" the poor guy. For the first bit they were unsure whether to keep him or not, but then he spiked a bad fever and his breathing got worse so they decided they needed to keep him in. They tested for all kinds of viruses again, as well as a bladder infection, did a swab of his G-tube site to see if it was infected and attempted to scrape the wax off her eardrum so they could tell whether or not his ears were infected. They tried to cover all areas but in the end he just ended up on a broad-spectrum antibiotic again. This is another reason I hate taking him in - they always put him on antibiotics, causing more yeast infections. Because he did have a cold a few days before coming in they did a swab for RSV and then he was put into an isolation room. It was worth the wait in Emerge: we got the best room on the Ward ... our own private room WITH an attached bathroom (yes that’s right, the other private/isolation rooms do not have their own bathroom - does that make any sense?). Technically parents are not suppose to use the bathroom, but when it’s my own private one and there’s no one else using it ... only makes sense I do!! :) This makes it so much easier as he’s at an age where it’s so hard to get away from him and I have such a small bladder that I’m always in need of a bathroom.

The next morning he woke up more like himself and I thought we would go home, but they wanted to keep him until he had been 24 hours without a fever. He did have a couple lower fevers throughout the day, but the next day they still let him go ... good thing because it’s hard to keep a relatively healthy and active kid happy in a room when he’s hooked to tons of cords and monitors.

BUT, that’s not the end of the story ... before we were discharged the resident checked him over and thought she heard a heart murmur. She called in the senior resident who heard the same thing, they proceeded to call the Team Doctor. He too heard it and was quite confident that it was not just a silent murmur, but an Apical Muscular VSD (I was later told by my Ped that it was pretty guttsy of him to name it that as you cannot tell without tests what kind of murmur it is), which is a hole between the left and right chambers, allowing oxygen-rich blood to go back to the lungs. He felt an Echo (an ultrasound of the heart) should be done. When he found out that James was going to be sedated on November 29 for an Endoscopy he said they would coordinate it to all be done at the same time. After waiting several hours just to get our discharge papers we finally got home late afternoon.

Chubby James.

At one point they loaded him with IV fluids because they thought he was
dehydrated. They had tried to get urine via a cathera and absolutely nothing would come out, not even a drop. So they loaded him with IV and tried again ... and still they could not get a drop out. They were baffled as a cathera can only go one way on a boy ... but hey, this is James. Poor guy was sore after that and then when he had to pee he would wiggle and squirm and cry ... hint for mom to grap the urine bottle and catch what's coming .... and so we got a "clean" urine specimen.