DOMINICIS

Thanks to the yucky RSV that has been going around the valley Ari is back on the bottle 24/7. It saved him from having an IV, because he will drink out of it anytime because it is such a comfort to him. When he was really sick I could put anything in it and we would drink it, now he examines it and if it isn't milk he throws it.
If I haven't already told you about our little adventure this week here it is. He got sick Thursday the 10th of February and just seemed to get a little worse each day. He was still playful and acting himself, just slept a lot more. The following Tuesday I called his doctor because he wasn't getting better. They had me take him in because they wanted to check his breathing. They did a RSV test, but it came out negative (they can be false negatives I guess). Then they sent me straight up the ER at Primary's because his oxygen level was only borderline okay. I had Mikey leave work and jump in the car on the way up. We then spent 6 hours sitting around trying to keep Ari from touching every single thing in the room we were in. They let us decide if we wanted to stay the night so he could be monitored, and we decided not too. I then dropped Mikey off and spent the night at my parents with Ari because our furnace was broken. Ari played for a while and I slept with him in the guest bed so I could keep a close eye on him.
The next day I went to do a follow-up with his doctor. She looked at him and said, "That's not good." I was shocked because I thought he was fine. They put a monitor on him and his blood/oxygen level was 87%, which means they had to put him on oxygen and call an ambulance so he could stay on it to go back up to Primary's. That's when I lost it. His doctor was really nice and tried to comfort me a bit, but I could barely talk to tell Mikey over the phone. They tried to improve his level by doing a mucus sucking thing, but it made them go down to 79%. So off we went.
Ari didn't mind the ride in the ambulance (which is good because it is probably the only trip we will be taking for awhile $$$). He actually liked looking out the window at the cars going past and would point and say "car" almost every time he saw one, so that kept him busy.
Mikey met us up there and we sat and they did more mucus sucking and another RSV test which was positive. We were then admitted and the next 24 hours were spent in a bed holding Ari and talking to doctors and watching his monitor. I got to sleep in bed with him because he wouldn't let me leave his side. The other moms I saw had to sleep in the awful cots and put their little ones in a crib.
We got to leave Thursday evening at 9:00pm and we were so glad to go and that Ari was on the mend. We only went to the respiratory clinic 3 times since and I think we can stop torturing Ari with the mucus suction thing now.
He is a little old to have had such a hard time with the virus. It seems to only really get bad with really young infants. I will talk to his doctor about that on Tuesday at his follow-up. Blah, we are really done with the hospital, but she will probably send us to some tests or something. It is really hard on a mom when you little one is so sick. I hope to get on a regular schedule soon and Ari used to his crib again (j/k, he has never been used to his crib). I have been too stressed to even think about taking the bottle away again. I will probably be packing one in his school lunches.