OK, so no picture with this story but had to share anyway. So, I nearly ended up in the ER with Jay on Thursday night. He was fine when he fell asleep and then he awoke at about 11:22 with a horrible barky sounding cough and wheezing. I went into his room as he was sounding worse and worse within seconds and the harder he tried to breathe the less oxygen he was getting and he was panicking. Me, being the doctor, ran to get the prednisone (so who other than me has prednisone in their house?) and the ventolin, and a stethoscope! I managed to get Jay to swallow the prednisone. Breathing in the ventolin with an aerochamber while he was wheezing - and indrawing! with a tracheal tug! - was a little harder. After 5 doses of ventolin with me saying, "Slow, Jay! Sssslllloooowww! Slow down your breathing" (and each dose being two puffs of ventolin and at least 4 breathing attempts) I could finally hear air entry in his lungs. At that point, I decided that I need to have an O2 saturation monitor present in the house and that it would be on my next wish list! I got Jay to lay down with me beside him, stroking his hair, reminding him to breathe slowly. About 5 minutes later the wheezing and barking was coming back with a vengeance so we had more ventolin and went outside for a few minutes. When he needed more ventolin about 7 minutes later we went back upstairs where I then got the humidifier and cranked it up in his room. I could hear better air entry then and decided we probably didn't need to go to the ER but I still sat beside him and we repeated the ventolin regimen about every 15 minutes for the next 2 hours. (I stopped it when he told me that it made his heart run fast!) Once I finally got Jay settled and he wasn't panicking anymore I asked him if he could tell me if he hurt anywhere to which he replied, grasping his little chest with both hands, "My feelings hurt." Oh my Jay! I wanted to cry for the little man. Clarke finally got home from work at 3:15am. I had sat by Jay until 3 and had finally decided it would be safe to go to bed. I told Clarke about my night and we both checked on Jay again and then I crashed until 6 when I had to get up for work. When I went in to check on Jay he was breathing quietly and opened his eyes just for a second. I asked him how he was and he answered better. I could go to work then knowing that his "feelings were better".
(I would like to add as an additional note here that I don't know how mom's can be mom's sometimes. I don't think I would survive if I wasn't a doctor. I never gave mom's a hard time for coming in to the ER at 2am and after this episode, I know how scary it can be with a sick little one. I have not gone out and bought an O2 saturation monitor and I think I will survive without one but I never want to have another episode with Jay's "feelings"!)
