In the Hospital Again

So, we’re in the hospital now. It all started earlier this week with all the sicknesses going through our family. Grandma Faun had been diagnosed with asthmatic bronchitis over a week ago, and is still trying to get over that. And Michael started to feel really awful this week. I thought he had the flu (even though he did get a flu shot this year) – but he had chills and fevers, aches all over, a bit of a sore throat, and he threw up a couple times. But I could tell he didn’t have the same thing as Grandma and all of our boys, because they have been coughing and had runny noses for several days, and Michael didn’t seem to be coughing much at all. It was a pretty tough few days since Michel was miserable with being sick and I was having to take care of all the kids without help from him and try to help Michael out with what I could. Also, Courtland’s cold seemed to be getting worse and he was having more and more trouble eating and sleeping at night, so I was getting pretty worn out. I called the pediatrician’s office to see if they wanted to have me bring Courtland in since he wasn’t taking much from his bottle feedings (which I was only concerned about because of his problems he has had with gaining weight), but my pediatrician wasn’t in the office that day and the nurse I spoke to said they wouldn’t do anything for his cough even if we did bring him in, so we decided to wait and see how he was doing. The next day Michael decided to go into the urgent care and figure out what was going on with him. He thought he might have strep (even though I suspected it was the flu, since he was presenting much differently than our boys did when they’ve had strep the last couple years), but he was right. He got a shot of antibiotics to treat the strep throat, and we had to wait 24 hours until he was no longer contagious. He wore a hospital mask around for a day or so, trying not to give it to the kids, and I didn’t let him hold the baby for a few days.

By that time, Kolby and Eli had started to get over their coughs, but Camden and Isaac were still coughing and had runny noses, and I was concerned about the possibility of them having strep because they are young enough that they can’t really tell us if they had sore throats. So, I took the three youngest boys into the pediatrician for strep tests yesterday morning. First, she looked at Camden’s throat and said it wasn’t really red, but since Michael had strep they would run the strep test on the boys anyways just in case. Then she looked in his ears and said that it looks like he is getting the start of an early ear infection. I was really surprised, because not only has he not complained about his ears hurting at all, but none of our kids has ever had an ear infection before (as far as we know). So, when she found that out, she said we wouldn’t need to do a strep test, since the antibiotics for the ear infection would work for strep too. She took a look at Isaac and said that he had the start of an ear infection too. I guess that sometimes if kids get an infection that they don’t get over right away (like the coughs), then they can develop a secondary infection (like the ear infections). So, she prescribed antibiotics for Camden and Isaac’s ear infections, but didn’t seem concerned about their coughs.

Then she took a look at Courtland. He had lost 5 ounces since his weight check last Friday. And she said that she thought his cough sounded like it might be RSV (un upper respiratory infection). She said that she wanted us to take him to Primary Children’s Hospital and that they would test for RSV and do a full work-up to try to figure out what was going on with his low weight, and she thought they would admit him to the hospital. After getting the other boys settled in with Grandma, we headed to the hospital. We waited for a couple hours and then got into the E.R., where they ran some tests. They gave him a catheter to get a urine sample, put in an IV (just so it would be in place, if needed), took some blood to run some labs, and suctioned his noise for the RSV test. Although none of his other tests have come back with anything abnormal since we’ve been here so far, his RSV test did come back positive, and they admitted him to the hospital. They said that if he had RSV, that meant that all of the rest of our family members who have coughs have RSV too. I guess that in children and adults RSV presents as a cough, and it is only serious in babies or in young children with other health problems. So, all of us have RSV.

The doctors seem more concerned about the weight loss than the RSV with Courtland, though. One thing they said was that with a low weight he might have more trouble fighting infections. And since the RSV has been affecting his eating, that would have an affect on his weight too.

RSV is not something that they can give antibiotics for, the only things they do are to suction their noses, give them oxygen, and make sure that they stay hydrated. (He hasn’t needed a breathing treatment yet, since he hasn’t been wheezing). So, the doctor today said that Courtland is staying hydrated well by himself, and they are still needing to suction him and give him oxygen, so those are two things that he will need to be doing better on his own before he can go home. So, they are working on getting him past the RSV now.

The thing they are more concerned about than the RSV is his weight. He turned 5 weeks old yesterday, and he still wasn’t up to his birth weight. They said that they call this “failure to thrive.” When we came into the hospital yesterday he was at 7 pounds 13 ounces, and they said they would normally expect him to be up around 9 pounds something. The attending doctor told me this morning that she thinks his condition is grave, and they’re doing everything possible to rule out any serious problems that would cause the weight loss. They ruled out cystic fibrosis with a sweat test this afternoon. At this point we are thinking that he doesn’t have any type of metabolic disease that is causing the weight loss, so we don’t really know why (except we do think that the RSV has been hindering his weight gain over the last few days, since it made it difficult to eat as much as normal). We’ve seen lactation, nutrition, and speech specialists today. They have me pumping, which has been less than fun (especially since my milk supply has gone down a lot with the formula feedings, so I’m not seeing any big results from the pumping sessions so far). The speech therapist watched Courtland eat from a bottle, and told us that he is kind of chomping on the bottle, so his jaw is working harder than it needs to and he is using a lot of energy. She showed us how to hold him up while he eats and support his head and neck with one hand while pushing up pretty hard under his chin with the hand that is holding the bottle – she said that eventually this chin support will teach him how to eat more efficiently on his own. So that seemed helpful. We had him on the 27 calorie formula up until we came to the hospital, and he wasn’t taking much (or spitting up a lot when he did take much) the last couple days, and so the pediatrician suggested maybe going back to the 20 calorie formula (the normal calorie amount) to see if he might take a less concentrated dose easier. So, he was on the 20 calories yesterday, and he was taking about 4 ounces per feeding without any spitting up. So today they moved him back up a little to 24 calorie formula, which he has continued to take without a problem, so that’s really good. He even ate 5 ounces earlier when the speech therapist came and we did the chin support, so we’re going to keep offering him 5 ounces and see how he does.

So, things are looking pretty good. He doesn’t seem like he’s in distress or anything like that from the RSV – he’s pretty relaxed. He just needs time, I guess, to get past the RSV so we can really make some good progress on getting him up to a good weight again. The doctor this afternoon said that the weight may fluctuate somewhat, but the goal is to have him gaining about 10 to 20 grams a day after a few days. And he also said that at this point he thinks we will probably be going home some time at the beginning of next week. So, things are sounding pretty good for now, and we’ll have to keep you updated on anything new that happens.

We have also been told that we shouldn’t go on our trip next weekend to look for houses in Rochester, which is rather disappointing, but what do you do? But Michael got permission today to switch his vacation week to April, so at least we will still be able to go – we’ll just need to change our flight, our hotel and rental car reservations, try to figure things out with family to help watch the boys while we’re gone, make new plans with the realtor, and basically start over on our house research since lots of the houses that are listed right now may not be available anymore by then (Michael said that just means that we weren't meant to go out there now because the perfect house for us must not be available now, but it will be when we go out in April). :) We'll keep our fingers crossed that by then our little guy will have put on some weight and will be a happy little chubby baby, and we'll be all set to go out and find ourselves a house.

I have to say, this whole thing has been kind of hard for me. Today has been better than last night. I was fine in the E.R., but when they brought us up to the room and we walked in and saw the little metal cage-like crib and they started hooking him to all the monitors, all the emotions from Isaac’s NICU stay rushed back. I know we won’t be here as long as we were in the hospital with Isaac, but it’s still hard. Plus they have so many babies with RSV right now that they are doubling up the rooms. They put two babies with RSV in the same room so they won’t give RSV to any of the other patients. So we are in a smallish room with a curtain down the middle. There are two chairs that fold out into beds, so the other baby’s mom and I each sleep here overnight, but there’s no room for Michael to stay, even if he wanted to. It has worked out ok, since the other mom is really nice and considerate, but it’s hard feeling like you can’t even cry or turn on the tv or anything because you don’t want to bother the other people in the room. Plus I’ve been going across the hall to use the bathroom, since that is on the other side of the curtain too. Oh well. I guess it could be a lot worse – we could be rooming with someone who is loud, annoying, rude, or who’s sick child is constantly screaming or something. Michael asked if we could split the bill if we have to share a room – that’d be nice, huh? And the nurses have all been really great so far too, which is helpful. So, we’re getting through this. Michael is feeding Courtland right now, and he’s getting to the end of his 5 ounces again, so I’m hopeful that things will just keep going up from here.