Labor Day

At about 4 am on the Sunday morning of Labor Day weekend, Belton woke up. Matt went to comfort him and tell him to go back to sleep, but Belton started screaming "Mamaaaa Mamaaaa". I heard this over the monitor and went in there too. Belton was wheezing and his stomach was pumping really hard and fast. We started him on a breathing treatment and I called the doctor. She said to do two treatments and if he wasn't doing better then to take him to the ER at Medical City. I had a feeling that this wasn't going to be a quick fix, so while Matt held Belton during his treatment, I went and jumped in the shower and got dressed. After the second treatment, he really wasn't better at all so we headed to the ER. On the way there, Belton fell asleep and I began second guessing our plan of action. Maybe he just needed to go home and sleep? He's obviously doing better if he's sleeping, right? Then he woke up and threw up apple juice all over himself. That was all the confirmation I needed. 

We got to Medical City and took him in to the Children's ER and it was empty. The person at the counter asked what was going on and I lifted Belton's shirt and showed his stomach pumping (where you can see his ribs with every quick, short breath) and said, "he's doing this after two breathing treatments at home". Then everyone quickly jumped into action. The guy at the counter immediately called for the respiratory team to come over. They took us back straight through the triage area to a room. One man asked another, "don't you want me to get their information in the computer?" The reply came "not right now". And they took care of Belton instead of the housekeeping stuff, which I was very grateful for. 

They took his blood pressure (which he HATED) and the nurse looked at it and said, "that can't really be his blood pressure, can it??"

Then they started what they call continuous breathing treatments. He had 2 hour long treatments in a row. Between the two treatments, the doctor came and assessed him, saying that he was going to admit Belton and expected us to stay the night and go home the next day with a much, much healthier child. During all of that, the doctor mentioned that Belton was taking about 50 breaths a minute, even after the first hour long breathing treatment. Our discharge papers said that if he was ever taking more than 32 a minute, we needed to take him back to the hospital. That put things into perspective for me!

At that point, it was 7 am on Sunday morning, so we knew we had a long day/days ahead of us if we weren't going home until sometime Monday. Papaw came to see Belton and brought a toy. That was great, since we hadn't even thought about doing that! I knew we had toys in the car that we could bring in, but we just hadn't yet. They put Belton in his hospital gown and gave him an IV and we waited for a room.

One of the saddest parts of the whole thing for me was when we were being wheeled out of the ER to Belton's room in the hospital, he got excited and said "home! home!" over and over again cause the poor boy thought we were going home and he was already SO ready to go home. We got to his room, and it was really pretty nice. We had a crib, 2 chairs, a twin bed and a couch. So, there was a decent amount of space. Since Belton was hooked up to the IV fluids and had an oxygen monitor on his toe, he was stuck in either this chair or his crib.

Grandmom came and brought some more toys and movies for Belton to be able to enjoy!

 We got Belton to take a couple of naps.

 Sweet, sad, sleepy baby.

It was a long night with breathing treatments every two hours. The respiratory therapist came in every time very quietly and tried to just hold the mask over his face and let him sleep through the five minute treatment...but he always woke up. He was not a fan of the crib and was startled to wake up in it every time after he fell asleep in our arms and we transferred him over to the crib.

So they came in and did breathing treatments every two hours until Monday morning when they stretched it out to three and then four to see how he tolerated that. We were told we could go home when he could go four hours between treatments.

We had more visitors and families and friends that brought us food and toys for Belton. We are so grateful for all the help we received in the hospital!

 Finally, late Monday afternoon, they said we could go home! Of course, it was a waiting game to get discharge orders sent and received and then typed and given to us. But, once they unhooked Belton's IV and oxygen monitor, he was free to leave the room! He was so, so happy to be in that wagon!

We went home with a diagnosis of Reactive Airway Disease/Asthma. He had a cold during the week leading up to this and it just escalated into this! We are so grateful that he is okay and healthy and that it wasn't worse. We are fully aware that it could have been much, much worse!

I'm grateful for good doctors who took care of Belton and for righteous priesthood holders who gave him a blessing which definitely calmed my heart! I'm also grateful that it was Labor Day weekend. Although, it wasn't how we planned on spending a three day weekend as a family, it was really nice that Matt didn't have to worry about work at all.