Pneumonia

Last Monday I went to Sean's school. It was the week of Tech Trek and I am chair of the community council which puts me in charge of Tech Trek. It was a huge amount of work, took a ton of time and ultimately was a big success. Tech Trek isn't my story though, Sean is. I walked into the school as the bell rang and Sean came around the corner crying. I touched him and he was burning up. The teachers, Chinese and English came around the corner. If looks could kill, they'd have been in serious jeopardy. I asked how long he'd been sick. He has a health plan that says I am to be called IMMEDIATELY if he gets sick and I have personally discussed the plan with both teachers. Mrs. Mullins said "I promise he just told me he was sick 5 minutes ago and I told him you were on your way to pick him up I didn't know what else to do." Sean told me he got sick in Science but didn't tell anyone until his head hurt really bad and he was so dizzy he couldn't walk. I took him home and he had a temperature of 103. He had a high fever until Friday and then he was feeling a lot better. I thought maybe we were going to get through a virus without it going to his lungs.




On Friday night he started to cough. He coughed through the weekend with low grade fevers. He got sicker on Monday so I took him to the pediatrician. I had started him on Acyclovir Sunday night. We have emergency antibiotics on hand for when we travel.  The pediatrician said his lungs didn't sound to bad and his oxygen saturation's were 90-93. I told the doctor I was really worried about the ED-68 virus that has been on the news. She said "oh you don't have to worry about that only kids that get that are kids with......she looked at Sean and said well, there's nothing you can do to prevent it, just use good hand washing. We decided to give it another day and see how he was. Monday night his saturation's started dropping below 90 so I put him on oxygen. Tuesday night he was worse. He threw up and his fever was back up to 102. I took him in to the doctor at 10 on Wed. They did an x-ray and he had pneumonia. No big surprise. His oxygen saturation's were in the 80's and he needed to be hospitalized. I really like the new pediatrician Dr. Shakib. She just finished her residency at PCMC and knows the medical staff at the hospital. She was able to arrange a direct admit so we didn't have to go through the ER.




His lungs are to tight to even wheeze and he's not moving much air. They have him on oxygen and are doing albuterol treatments with the chamber every two hours. He's starting to move air on the left side and they can hear some crackles on the right so it's opening up a little. He's asleep now and I am in the parent cot. I pulled it up next to his bed. I've been sleeping with him the past nine days so I am there when he has his coughing fits. A little while ago he threw up. I gave him a bath and the nurse changed his bed. When I got him back in bed and hooked up to his monitors, his oxygen levels were really good and the aide came in and took his oxygen off. Sean freaked out he said "I can't breath." I said "she wants to see if you need the oxygen" That's a real duh cause if he didn't need it we wouldn't be here. Sean was crying and said "who gave her permission to take it off?" That made me laugh. His levels dropped and the nurse put his oxygen back on. Smart kid! He's not complaining about the nasal cannula because he feels so much better. They did a nasal swab and it came back negative for RSV, rhinovirus, flu and a bunch of other stuff. I'm not sure how many viruses the swab detects but apparently it's a whole bunch. His lungs look pretty crappy. The right is worse than the left.


I am supposed to teach tomorrow and Friday, Linda is covering for me.

My sick kiddo.