Wednesday, March 21, 2012

January 26, 2012

January 26, 2012 will go down in my book as one of the scariest days of my life.


It started off like most other days, Owen had been sick for about 3 days with a cough, cold, and a little bit of heavy breathing. I had taken him in to the doctor the day before and he was diagnosed with cold induced asthma. We were given an inhailer and sent home, so we went about business as normal. Thursday Owen still wasn't feeling much better and his breathing got a little worse. I continued giving him the breathing treatments and went about our day. After Luke got home from school, I took the boys to get their haircuts then we celebrated their good behavior at the grand opening of our new ChickFila. While we were at ChickFila, Owen sat very still on my lap which was a little out of the ordinary, but I just thought he may be tired. The other boys played and before to long is was time to get home.


The new ChickFila is literally 2 minutes from our house (haven't quite determined if this is a good thing or a bad thing), so sometime in the short 2 minute drive home, I noticed Owen's head drooping in his carseat. I thought "Wow, he must have been really tired". As we pulled into our driveway, his eyes were rolling back and he was drooling, so I knew something was terribly wrong. I rushed over to our doctor's office (which is also 2 minutes away) where my mom met me to get the other boys.


The doctor came into the waiting room and immediately yelled for them to call an ambulance. I started to panic because by then Owen was pretty limp. He was still breathing, but not very good. The ambulance arrived and decided to take him to the closest hospital to get him stabilized then to transfer him later if needed.


Once we arrived at Memorial Herman- Southeast it was determined that he had RSV which is a common respiratory virus that can be very serious in young children. Owen had 5 breathing treatments there and still wasn't looking as good as they would have liked so they transferred him in the middle of the night to Texas Children's Hospital.




This is a picture of him that night. The only way he could breath was with oxygen. The next day, he was moved to ICU because his breathing continued to decline and they wanted him to be monitored more closely. We stayed there from Friday to Sunday.





In ICU Owen slept most of the time because his little body was worn out from all of that heavy breathing.





By Sunday, he started to perk up and feel a little better. He was finally able to have a drink!




That first drink was so good that he wanted another!!! By now, I knew he was feeling so much better.





By Sunday night we were moved out of ICU and into a regular room and off the oxygen. We were released on Monday morning :)




Throughout the whole experience, God had my sweet little Owen in the palm of His hand and took very good care of him. All of the people we met at TCH were amazing and so helpful which made our experience there much easier.

Owen is doing much better now and made a full recovery! Our family and friends also took very good care of us and we wouldnt have been able to do it without them.

1 comment:

Cherokee's Mom said...

Cherokee had a *mild* case of RSV when she was 5 months old. She didn't end up in the hospital but I slept right beside her crib for several nights. It was scary!