Torture in a tube!
This week was going great; nice and calm, not too much to worry about with the apartments, the weather was perfect, and the kids and I were getting out to the park and a few play dates. That is nice for us since the apartments usually take priority to park and play dates. Sad, I know. I was even able to find time to go to the gym 5 times this week which is HUGE for me! We had a very enjoyable General Conference weekend, Ronnie even watched the kids in between sessions on Saturday so I could go shopping for some much needed summer clothes. 
Sunday we went to 
some friends house to watch the Sunday sessions and have a BBQ with others in the ward. Our friends Liz and Peter have a baby boy Maximo that is the same age as Beckham. They also have a little pug named Pookie who is Madison's new best friend. We had a blast hanging out with them and some other friends in the ward. All was well until we ended up in the Urgent Care for 3 hours on Sunday night. Beckham had a runny nose this week and a little cough but seeing as he is getting all 4 top teeth at the same time, I wasn't too worried, that tends to happen when my kids are teething. However, Sunday evening Ronnie and I noticed he was wheezing and seemed to not be feeling so hot. Even when he is sick this kid usually has a smile on his face. The wheezing thing got me a little concerned so I lifted up his shirt to check his chest and with each breath his little chest was caving in. I called the Dr. and she listened to his breathing over the phone and told me to take him in now! We ended up at the Urgent Care Center at Stanford and finally got seen after waiting for over 2 hours. (Really, they only had a few lacerations and broken arms, I think my child with difficulty breathing should have taken priority!) They ended up putting him on a nebulizer with some medication to relax his chest muscles. The 
wheezing 
stopped and the pulling in was much better after those long 7 minutes on the nebulizer. He screamed the whole time, getting so worked up that his little face, chest and arms were bright red after the treatment. They finally sent us home once his oxygen levels were back up. I guess he didn't have any kind of serious illness, it was just the way his body reacted to the congestion. The Dr. told us that this could be a pre-asthmatic sign-- GREAT! Or, it could just be a once in a lifetime reaction to the congestion-- Lets hope that's it! We walked out with a prescription for an at home treatment with an inhaler, mask, and spacer that he has to breath every 4 hours. Ronnie and our friend Jay gave him a blessing when we got home and he slept really good last night, only waking up once. I think he was pretty wiped out after that long day. I tackled the treatment this morning by myself- That was interesting! I had to recruit my four year old to hold her baby brother's arms down while I tried to press the mask on his face and not loose the seal or we would have to start all over. She kept asking me if he was hurting and why he was crying if he wasn't hurt. I am sure it is a little hard to understand why mommy is making her pin her brother down while screaming, covering his face with a silly looking duck mask and counting to 10. I just kept telling her that it was medicine that his body needs to feel better. Yeah right mom, looks like torture! Not fun! As you can see from the pictures, he liked eating it a lot better than actually doing it. The last picture is right after the torture took place. Couldn't you just cry with him? I know, me too! It wouldn't be so bad if I didn't have to shove the mask on his face and create a "seal". But they don't want to let any of the medicine escape so you have to press it on and make sure he doesn't move and let it get out.
Sunday we went to 
some friends house to watch the Sunday sessions and have a BBQ with others in the ward. Our friends Liz and Peter have a baby boy Maximo that is the same age as Beckham. They also have a little pug named Pookie who is Madison's new best friend. We had a blast hanging out with them and some other friends in the ward. All was well until we ended up in the Urgent Care for 3 hours on Sunday night. Beckham had a runny nose this week and a little cough but seeing as he is getting all 4 top teeth at the same time, I wasn't too worried, that tends to happen when my kids are teething. However, Sunday evening Ronnie and I noticed he was wheezing and seemed to not be feeling so hot. Even when he is sick this kid usually has a smile on his face. The wheezing thing got me a little concerned so I lifted up his shirt to check his chest and with each breath his little chest was caving in. I called the Dr. and she listened to his breathing over the phone and told me to take him in now! We ended up at the Urgent Care Center at Stanford and finally got seen after waiting for over 2 hours. (Really, they only had a few lacerations and broken arms, I think my child with difficulty breathing should have taken priority!) They ended up putting him on a nebulizer with some medication to relax his chest muscles. The 
wheezing stopped and the pulling in was much better after those long 7 minutes on the nebulizer. He screamed the whole time, getting so worked up that his little face, chest and arms were bright red after the treatment. They finally sent us home once his oxygen levels were back up. I guess he didn't have any kind of serious illness, it was just the way his body reacted to the congestion. The Dr. told us that this could be a pre-asthmatic sign-- GREAT! Or, it could just be a once in a lifetime reaction to the congestion-- Lets hope that's it! We walked out with a prescription for an at home treatment with an inhaler, mask, and spacer that he has to breath every 4 hours. Ronnie and our friend Jay gave him a blessing when we got home and he slept really good last night, only waking up once. I think he was pretty wiped out after that long day. I tackled the treatment this morning by myself- That was interesting! I had to recruit my four year old to hold her baby brother's arms down while I tried to press the mask on his face and not loose the seal or we would have to start all over. She kept asking me if he was hurting and why he was crying if he wasn't hurt. I am sure it is a little hard to understand why mommy is making her pin her brother down while screaming, covering his face with a silly looking duck mask and counting to 10. I just kept telling her that it was medicine that his body needs to feel better. Yeah right mom, looks like torture! Not fun! As you can see from the pictures, he liked eating it a lot better than actually doing it. The last picture is right after the torture took place. Couldn't you just cry with him? I know, me too! It wouldn't be so bad if I didn't have to shove the mask on his face and create a "seal". But they don't want to let any of the medicine escape so you have to press it on and make sure he doesn't move and let it get out. Needless to say we had an adventurous weekend. I was quite surprised to learn, after researching a little, that this is actually becoming quite common in babies and kids. Some research suggests that it is the pollution and decreasing air quality that is making little ones get asthma and other breathing problems so young. The number of small children with problems like this is growing rapidly, pretty soon people will be buying nebulizers like we buy Tylenol. Not good! So please, drive less, carpool more, turn out your lights, don't litter, RECYCLE EVERYTHING POSSIBLE, and use more natural products! All that pollution is really hurting our little ones.--OK I am off my soap box! But really, it is starting to get scary. I am not wanting to have any more kids in fear that they will grow up in a polluted, crime infested, material world!--OK, now I am really off it, sorry!
4 comments:
How scarey! Poor little guy. Of our four kids, three of them have had asthma problems. It sounds like the same thing as Beckham. It only bothers them when they have a cold. Our oldest has out grown it but our second one can get really bad when she gets a cold. They've had to put her on steroids three times this past winter. NO FUN! Our baby has already had a couple of episodes, one of which ended up with him in the hospital during Christmas break. We are really hoping that they too will out grow it without any other serious problems. If you want any more details about our experience with different meds and stuff, let me know. Otherwise I won't bore you with any more details. I sure hope Beckham doesn't have any future problems with it though. Getting them to hold still for their treatments can be quite a challange (I like the title of your post!). I'm glad that other then that, you had a good weekend. You'll have to model your new summer clothes for us next week. Oh, and sorry for not getting you an invite sooner to my blog. You are so on my list now. What beautiful friendships this whole blog thing has made. Come visit us anytime. We're pretty close to Nauvoo if you ever make it out this way:)!
Oh Jod, your poor baby! That picture of him crying breaks my heart! And how sweet of Madison to be so concered about her brother. What a sad thing to go through. Ew, a spider just landed on my computer. Sorry, off the subject. I'm glad he's doing better now and I agree with the theory about something in the air. I think I'm the minority out of all of my friends b/c I have never had to do breathing treatments for my kids. Keep us updated on how he's doing. Miss you!
I know, the more I talk about what happened and ask around, it seems like a lot of people have to do regular breathing treatments with their little ones or at least treatments when their kids are sick. It is really scarey! I have a few friends here who have nebulizers at home and they take them everywhere- school, vacation etc... It is so sad. I just pray that Bex doesn't have chronic issues and that this is just a one time deal. Luckily he has been responding well to the treatments and is doing better already. Keep him in your prayers!
My husband works in the ER and sees tons of kids with breathing issues. It is awful. I, or course, am a paranoid nervous wreck after hearing all the stories. Our oldest daughter was in primary children's hospital for over two weeks in 2005 and had tons of the breathing treatments. NOT FUN. I hope your little guy gets better soon. He is so adorable.
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