We were hoping that James was going to make a turn for the better when we put him to bed last Sunday night. Unfortunately, he didn’t. Monday morning he was about the same as when we put him to bed. Still having breathing issues and an elevated heartrate. We called the pediatrician, and he gave us two options: either go to his office and get an x-ray or go to the ER.
It really wasn’t a hard decision to make. Between taking him to the pediatrician, who is about 30 minutes away, or to the emergency room, which is 10 minutes away, the ER was the obvious choice, so that is how we started our week.
An x-ray in the ER revealed that he had pneumonia in the upper lobe of his right lung so of course they wanted to admit him. We were hoping for a one night stay but didn’t come home until Thursday.
Here is a video that was posted to James’ Facebook page of him saying hi to all of his fans Monday night from his hospital room:
After he was admitted on Monday, they started him on an IV antibiotic and breathing treatments every 4 hours. All of the bloodwork they ran came back fine. The also ran a virus panel which came back on Wednesday and showed that he had rhinovirus. I think this is the second time he’s had this. As his pediatrician told us the first time James had it, it’s just a really bad cold.
Tuesday, they tested James’ urine and he had a urinary tract infection (UTI). They did not need to do anything to treat it because he was already on antibiotics. They ran another test on his urine on Wednesday and the UTI was gone. Was the antibiotic really that good that it knocked it out in one day? Do UTIs normally go away that fast? Maybe the first test was a false positive.
They felt James was stable enough to go home on Thursday. It was a relatively short stay in the hospital, and we were all glad to be home. Actually, I should say that James and Stacy were glad to be back home. Our normal protocol when James is in the hospital is that Stacy stays with James at the hospital around the clock. Because of the lack of room in the hospital room, I usually sleep at home. And since Stacy knows James better than I do, it makes more sense for her to stay with him. Stacy has done an amazing job with James’ medical binder (aka James’ Bible) where she keeps note from hospital visits and doctor appointments; the medications he’s taking and the dosage; his doctors and his phone numbers; etc. I could probably answer any question that was asked about James, but it may take me a while to find the answer as I flip though the binder. Stacy, on the other hand, can usually immediately answer any question that was asked about James.
There has only been one time that I stayed in the hospital with them. That was when James was doing an overnight sleep study at a hospital in the city. It didn’t make sense for me to drive all the way back home to sleep, just to drive all the way back to pick them up in the morning. I ended up sleeping in a chair and woke up very sore! So, as a correction to the second sentence in the preceding paragraph, I was glad to have my family back home.
James had been on oxygen since last Sunday night and continued to be on oxygen until Friday. Stacy thought that he was stable enough on Friday, so she took him off the oxygen to see how he did. He did extremely well and hasn’t needed oxygen the past couple of days.
When James was discharged from the hospital on Thursday, they didn’t send him home with a prescription for antibiotics. The only discharge orders were to continue with the breathing treatment regimen (every four hours) and his regular medications. We went to see the pediatrician yesterday, he prescribed an antibiotic, just to make sure that the pneumonia was completely gone and didn’t come right back.
It looks like things are back to normal. Let’s hope it stays this way. James is a strong kid, but I don’t know how many times he can beat pneumonia before it beats him. Thank you for all of your thoughts and prayers.
One final thought that I want to share before I publish this post. This is for the parents out there that are going through the same, or similar, struggles that we are. Having a child that is medically complicated is stressful. Sometimes it’s hard. There may be moments that you feel like throwing in the towel, even though you know you can’t, because your child depends on you. It does help to have a sense of humor. I think this helps Stacy and I get through these situations. We both have a quirky sense of humor. For example, yesterday James needed a bit more suctioning than normal, probably because he was still fighting off the pneumonia and rhinovirus. Our common practice is to suction his nose first, wipe off the suction catheter and then suction his throat. I had just suctioned his nose and was in the process of suctioning his throat when I noticed some more secretions coming out of his nose. I turned to Stacy and said, “you know, if James was in the mob, his name would be Jimmy Leaks.” She rolled her eyes and giggled. Sometimes that is all you need. Just a stupid joke to make someone smile. It might not take away all of the stress and frustration, but it may take it away for that brief moment in time.
“If James was in the mob, his name would be Jimmy Leaks.”
~ Me
