To go or not to go

One of the hardest parenting decisions for Margaret and I has been to know when a problem is a big problem and when it is a small problem.  When Josh had his first fever I freaked out and called the pediatrician after hours.  Since then I've calmed down a little bit and don't always panic.  When Josh is sick we call the pediatrician during office hours and talk to a nurse and they tell us if we should be concerned or not.  We've had a few trips to the ER after Josh took particularly big falls, after the pediatrician suggested we should get him checked out.  In both cases he was fine but I know if we didn't go to the ER we would be worrying about it for a while.

A week ago Saturday night Josh got sick.  He woke up several times during the night (rare for him) and was very upset.  Recently if he wakes up at night he just wants his blanket (or "buddy") put back on him but that was not working Saturday night.  Each time he woke up he was very upset and would take a while to calm down.  He finally calmed down and slept a few hours.  Sunday night was even worse. He woke up almost every hour, and was clearly upset. Around 2am his breathing seemed difficult and he was very unhappy.  He finally slept a few hours until early morning but he woke up very dazed and confused.  He would not stop crying or sit still with us, so we decided then it was time to go to the hospital.  Since it was 5am, we did not want to bother the pediatrician since we knew they would just tell us to take him to the hospital. We also knew that there was a nasty virus going around that causes trouble breathing and we wanted to make sure Josh got the care he needed.

In this case going to the hospital was absolutely the right call.  It turns out Josh had RSV (not the enterovirus that is going around) and needed help breathing.  When we first arrived they checked his O2 levels and they were down around 90% (should be 99%). They gave him some oxygen and a drug to help open up his lungs and help him breathe. After a few hours he was feeling much better and running all around the pediatric area at the hospital.  We used a nebulizer at home and it really helped.  Josh has been sleeping normally and his fever went down after a few days.  The medicine he was on made him hyper so he has spent all of last week running around the house at full speed.

Knowing when to take health problems seriously can be difficult.  We don't want to overreact or over treat illnesses that are better left untreated. Sometimes a fever is just a fever, and just takes a few days to recover from....but sometimes it indicates something much more serious. Since we know Josh so well, we base our judgement on when he is acting really abnormal, so we know we should take it seriously.  Thankfully to this point anytime we have not panicked he has been alright and we're glad this time he has recovered so well.

Here is a video from Thursday (hyper Josh!):

Getting some air

Playing at the hospital

Playing Angry Birds at home