Brayden's Health Update

As most of you know Brayden was hospitalized this week for pneumonia. Those of you who didn’t know here is a recap of our hellish week.

Brett came down with a cold a couple of weeks ago and I didn’t think anything of it when Brayden started to get some symptoms of a cold as well. Brayden started getting cold symptoms last Thursday and by Saturday evening he wasn’t sleeping through the night due to coughing fits and wheezing.

I still just thought he had Brett’s bad cold, but decided to take him to the walk-in sick clinic at his pediatrician’s office on Monday morning. Well, low and behold they told me he had pneumonia! (http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/pneumonia/DS00135)

So it was home with some antibiotics and told to keep our activity levels low. By Tuesday afternoon he was much worse with cold chills, sweating and more wheezing. I took him back to the pediatrician’s office and they said that his lungs sounded much worse and he was going to need breathing treatments with a nebulizer every 4-6 hours.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebulizer)

This time it was home with a nebulizer, a prescription for Albuterol, and instructions to keep our activity levels low.

By the time Wednesday came along we were back in the pediatrician’s office because he was requiring the breathing treatments every 2 hours instead of every 4-6 hours. The pediatrician said this was dangerous so we were off to the hospital for a chest x-ray to see what was going on in his little chest.

Once the chest x-ray came back showing nothing interesting, yet he was still requiring the breathing treatments every 2 hours we got a call from our pediatrician saying she was admitting him to the hospital for further testing and monitoring.

Wednesday night was spent in the hospital with more breathing treatments, oxygen treatments, lots of monitoring, and NO sleep. I must say, with all the doctor visits and lack of sleep Brayden has had over the last couple of weeks, he has still been in the best mood and has been such a little trooper. Kids are really resilient.

We were discharged on Thursday afternoon with the diagnosis of Reactive Airway Disease/ RAD (http://www.medhelp.org/forums/RespiratoryDisorders/messages/1052.html). Basically this is asthma brought on by a viral infection.

We were sent home with a prescription for a steroid to decrease the inflammation in his lungs, instructions to do the breathing treatments every 4 hours, and instructions to keep him in the house and away from sick people until the beginning of next week. (His steroid makes him more susceptible to infection…great…)

My mom flew out the moment she got the word he was in the hospital, mostly to help with Brett and I. I have become extremely rundown with all this excitement and my OBGYN is very nervous I will come down with this infection as well. So, my mom was able to come and help me get the rest I need to get back on my feet.

Brayden is doing great and has slowly become accustomed to the breathing treatments. We try to make it fun by watching a movie while we do them, make a big deal when we are finished, and he gets to pick out a special sticker from his sticker book to wear for the rest of the day. He has really been great about all this even though you can tell he doesn’t like it.

We are hoping this will all end once the infection is completely gone and we are keeping our fingers crossed this isn’t the beginning of Brayden telling us he has asthma.

Thanks for all your thoughts and love through this rough time for us! We love you!

- Sue -