Our Family: 5 Days in the Hospital

So on Friday the 14th Aiden caught the cold that the other two kids had for 2 weeks. He spiked a fever and lost his voice. It was so sad. You couldnt even hear him when we was crying really hard because he was so hoarse. Well on Saturday Aiden was even worse. He was sleeping a ton and still sounding really sad and he seemed like he was having a hard time breathing and he had a pretty bad cough. I was so worried about him that I ended up staying up with him all night. Poor baby couldn't sleep. He spent the whole night whining every time he exhaled. It broke my heart. The next day wasn't any better. We skipped church since he was so sick and still had a fever of 103.2. I ended up calling my grandma Simper (she is a NICU nurse) and asked her what I should do. She had me try syringe feeding him pedialite since he was so weak he couldn't eat and anything he did eat he threw up. So we tried that and a bunch of other things she told us to try and then around 6 she told us to take him to the emergency room. I wanted to try to wait till Monday morning so we could go to the pediatrician but he was just getting worse by the second. So we bundled up the kids and called Mikes dad to come down and get Evy and Ethan from the waiting room. We got there and they got us right in and started checking him. As soon as they hooked him up to the little thing that measures O2 in the blood they got us in a room in like 2 minutes and got him on oxygen. Babies are supposed to be in the high 90's to 100% of O2 in there blood. Aiden was sitting at 82%. At 79% they consider that pretty critical. So we were a little scared. Mikes dad was there with the kids in the waiting room so I ran up front and asked Randy to go back with Mike and give Aiden a blessing. He came back up front and took the kids with him to spend the night while Mike and I stayed with Aiden. They ended up putting and IV in his head since they needed more blood and decided to leave it in just in case the one in his foot collapsed. Well the doctors and the nurses were all amazing and kept us very informed which we really appreciated. They got back the x-ray results and they said it looked like pneumonia and that we would have to be transported to Utah Valley Hospital. They would only let one of us ride in the ambulance so Mike let me go since I couldn't stand being away from Aiden. Mike stopped at home to grab some night time supplies and followed us to the other hospital. I rode with Aiden in the Ambulance and was taken to the pediatric center there. They already had a bunch of nurses in the room waiting for Aiden. They grabbed Aiden and hooked him up to the O2 and started the IV. The one in his foot collapsed on the way there so luckily they had left the one in his head so they just used that one and then they didn't have to poke him again. Mike got there and then the doctor came in. Now I had been pretty good up until this part. I hadn't cried and I was optimistic and I was doing ok for the situation. However, when the doctor came in and flat out said that Aiden was really really sick and that it was good we came in tonight, I lost it. I started crying uncontrollably. There was my little baby hooked up to a bunch of tubes and IVs and a ton of nurses surrounding him trying to get him stable. There were so many people in the room that we had no room to move. Mike just held me as I cried and we waited for them to finish so we could hold him again. He ended up having Bronchiolitis and RSV. They ended up putting him on High Flow (which jsut forces air into his lungs so they stay open and makes it easier to breathe) and O2 and IV fluid and a feeding tube along with a ton of antibiotics just in case he did have a type of pneumonia. We ended up staying in the hospital for 5 days. He had to have steroid treatments to open him lungs more and also they had to suction him and pound on him every 4 hours or so to knock loose all the crap in his lungs and then suction it out. It was really sad to have him be so miserable. I was so happy that I didnt have to work though. I didnt have to worry about finding someone to cover my shift and didnt have to worry about anything other then Aiden. I was able to stay with him 24-7 and I am so grateful for that. Mike took the kids at night at home and his parents watched them during the day. The nurses and doctors there were amazing and they weened him off everything slowly. We were able to get out of the hospital on Friday night and was able to be home with the family for the weekend.