The Pearson Family: Home from the Hospital

Well what a month this is turning out to be...

Austin started to show signs of a cold Sunday morning and by supper time was coughing, wheezing a bit and complaining of a sore throat. He fell asleep on the couch before supper which is very unusual for him. So we started him on his Flovent to help with the inflammation of his airway and gave him his Ventillin as needed to help loosen the muscles constricting his airway. None of it seemed to be helping so after a sleepless night we decided to take him to the Strathmore ER 6am Monday morning. His oxygen was really low and he was using every muscle in his chest and neck to take a breath. Right away he was given oxygen and ventillin nebulizers one after the other which helped bring his O2 up a little. A chest x-ray showed that it could possibly be viral pneumonia so Austin was given an IV and antibiotics were started. After a couple of hours of monitoring the doctor decided that Austin needed to be admitted and since there were no beds in Strathmore (again) he would be taken to the Children's Hospital in Calgary by ambulance. So off we went. John had since gone to work since we thought that Austin would just get a couple neb treatments and we'd be home by noon so he then met us at the Children's. Well, he had 5 treatments in the ambulance alone and then I lost count after that. He was started on an oral steroid once a day and was getting meds at least every hour and throughout the first night every half an hour. Plus he was getting his vitals assessed before every med treatment and every 15 to 30 mins after depending on the length of time between treatments. Austin wouldn't let the nurses give him his puffer, only Mommy. Another sleepless night for Austin and Mommy. John would've stayed as well but he had to go home and take care of Saxon.

They ruled out viral pneumonia as soon as we got to the Children's so that was good but took a nose swab to make sure it wasn't the dreadful H1N1, which we later found out it wasn't, thank goodness. It was definitely a viral infection though that brought on this asthma attack and there are thousands of them out there. The results of the nose swab took awhile so Austin had to be in isolation and the doctors and nurses had to wear gowns and masks when they came into the room just to be on the safe side.

So the second day was better, was still on O2 for most of the day but they started stretching out his med treatments, first to every hour then every 2 hours then to every 4. It was hopeful that we'd get out that night but that unfortunately didn't happen...Austin was still a bit wheezy, sounding better though. Night #2 was much much better. Austin was off oxygen and his IV and was only needing his meds every 4 hours so we got some much needed rest.

Wednesday morning we were given the great news that Austin could go home! Austin was getting so antsy and bored by this point that every 2 minutes he was asking if we could go home now. Poor little guy. It was early afternoon by the time he was discharged but we were all just happy to be going home. The doctors and nurses were all amazing and took such good care of our little boy and made sure we were comfortable as well.

We are very lucky to live so close to such an amazing facility.

Here's a couple of pics from our stay...these were taken after he was taken off O2 and no longer needing his IV. He was looking much better at this point.