Monday morning, Joshua had a follow-up appointment with our pediatrician to make sure the pneumonia was cleared and he was healthy again. He had started coughing and having a runny nose, and not breathing so well, so I was glad the appointment was already on the schedule. The doc listened to his lungs and checked him over and said he was fine.
Around lunch time, I called the doctor's office and said he seems to be getting worse and what to do. The nurse called back and said he's fine, it's just a virus and to give him some honey to help what must be a sore throat.
During the day, I gave Joshua two breathing treatments that didn't seem to be working or making a difference.
Bob got home from work, and I told him that Joshua seems to be struggling to breathe a little bit. He agreed, and he called the on-call number for our pediatrician. She said his lungs were fine, and that if the breathing treatments weren't helping then it must not be his lungs that are the problem.
Around 9 p.m., Joshua woke up screaming, working really hard to breathe, and would not calm down for about 30 minutes. I called the nurse line at a different hospital and talked to their nurses for a second opinion. She agreed with me that Joshua needed to be seen right away. Joshua had thrown up while I was on the phone with the nurse from being so worked up. I drove him straight to the ER and had Bob call and tell them we were on the way.
There were over 80 patients in the ER that night, and Joshua passed everyone and was seen immediately because of his age and difficulty breathing. His oxygen level was low, but not terrible. They gave him two breathing treatments in the ER and a dose of oral steroids. He was improving, but they went ahead and admitted him because of his age and not sure if he would go backwards over night. So, upstairs we went to the third floor in the pediatric wing for our stay. Joshua and I finally got to the room at 2 a.m. I slept for maybe an hour or two that night.
Bob drove Jacob to the hospital in the morning, and I took Jacob to school soon after. The nurse held Joshua the entire time I was gone (five minutes - you can see Jacob's school from Joshua's room at the hospital). My mom came down to stay with Joshua when I had to pick him up from school. Jacob was such a great sport the entire day despite having to leave for school and come back from school to a hospital room.
We weren't released from the hospital until 3 p.m., and Joshua is on medicine for the rest of the pneumonia that the doc thought was gone, but the x-ray showed it was still there, along with an oral steroid and breathing treatments. We have Joshua schedule to see a pediatric pulmonologist on Tuesday to figure out what is going on. The two times Josh has been in the hospital have been completely different, so I'm not even sure if they are related. I hope he can figure it out and get Joshua taken care of so we don't have to worry about his oxygen levels.
A scary start to the week, but glad it is over and Joshua is on the road to recovery.
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