RSV

This should be name the Really Sucky Virus. I'm not even sure if its a virus but I think it is. In any event, it sucks. Jake started feeling crappy Thursday of last week. He started coughing, runny nose, crying for no reason-all signs he was getting something. As usual, I wished and hoped an prayed it would stop with him but Friday I started to lose my voice and it was completely gone by Sunday. A week later and I'm still feeling yucky so I can only imagine how make has felt. With two moving babies and a four year old all-star nose-picker, it's impossible to keep germs out of our house. In Jake's defense, he doesn't know how to ask for a tissue so he picks his nose when he feels something inside....it doesn't matter if we tell him to please stop 1,000 times, he still does it.

Pretty certain he was the host of all of this. Poor kid gets everything and brings it home. Wayyyyy back in March in the NICU both girls got the RSV shot (it doesn't stop RSV but it should shorten the severity of it) but only one round. They missed the round in April because it wasn't brought to my attention by our pediatrician (more on that later). Jake's old pediatrician fought tooth and nail together it for Jake but it was denied three times by the insurance company to pay for it. The shot itself is over $200 and the patient should get one a month through the RSV season. Because the girls were preemies, insurance automatically covered it for them.

Saturday Brooklynn started being really fussy and started with the runny nose. Sunday Avery got the runny nose but was so happy. I told Kristi on Monday that they were feeling bad but when I picked them up she said they were great. Therapy was awful with Brooklynn. She cried and cried and cried. They both went to bed really early on Monday, which was strange for Avery, but again,Moshe was still super happy-just a cough and runny nose. Tuesday morning Brooklynn fell asleep on the floor face-down while I was getting ready for work. Abnormal. So I decided to take 1/2 day and take both to the dr because they were both acting sick and only getting worse. I have learned my lesson this year-if both are even remotely acting the same (sickness wise) take both because you know you'll just be back a few days later with the exact same thing.

Both babies were checked for RSV and strep and both had RSV. Their dr. Prescribed some steroid for their cough and basically told me to wait it out and come back Thursday for a lung-check. Yesterday was a rough day. Avery was still good-but very needy and Brooklynn would cry this scratchy cry for 15 minutes then sleep for an hour and do it all over again. She wasn't up for more than 3 hours total. This was the same on Tuesday, Wednesday, and today. She looks awful. Her eyes are red, she's coughing so hard, she's running a fever. She's so sleepy. I was so worried about her. I went in for their appointment (boy am I glad I got the first appointment of the day) and asked for their o2 level to be check right away. I mentioned Brooklynn's labored breathing to their dr on Tuesday (thanks to Kristi) and he said she was breathing comfortably but I really felt like she was having to work to hard. I watched her all day yesterday thinking she was Laborite to breathe and even watched you tube to see if I knew what I was talking about. Needless to say, Brooklynn's o2 was 81 and Avery's was 85. I knew Brooklynn was sick but Avery was pretty happy yesterday that I didn't think she would be struggling too. Little muffin even "traditionally" crawled yesterday! No more army crawling for her! Amazing! She just did it and never went back to army crawling! So their dr. Said we could do breathing treatments at the office or just got to the hospital. I felt like I had to talk him into just admitting them. I felt tired of watching and worrying and I told him I don't trust my judgement enough to decide when to go in so I would rather just go and get them comfortable instead of wasting time trying other things. I knew these kids needed oxygen. I was listening to my mama gut. So he says he will call for beds at Littleton (um-thanks but no thanks. We've had enough of Littleton hospital screw ups for a lifetime). So he called down to Swedish. Once we got the ok for beds there (both can be in one room, thank goodness) he talked to the dr on call and came back and really freaked me out. He said that I have no time to go home and get anything but I needed to go right to Swedish, right upstairs to the pediatric unit. If I get in an accident on the way I have to call 911 so they can have oxygen. If it takes me more than an hour then Broklynn might not be stable anymore. He said would call an ambulance but he didn't want it to cost us $5,000. Um....is this the same doctor who 30 minutes before was telling me we were going to try breathing treatments in the office first? Then he tells me to get going and that the breathing treatments wouldn't have probably worked anyway. So....we already decided before this to switch pediatricians but this sealed the deal. What an idiot.

We are here now. The girls are finally asleep and I need to rest too before the next time they wake up...it'll be far too soon.

More tomorrow night when they are asleep. Thoughts and prayers appreciated for a better and much improved day tomorrow-especially for Brooklynn.