An Eventful Three Weeks...

Since I last posted, we have had quite an eventful time. About three weeks ago, on a Monday, we received a call from Olivia's daycare that she had a fever and had been pretty lethargic all day. We picked her up early from daycare, and Jeremy took the next day off from work to help me tend the girls. We really wanted to try and keep the girls separated to prevent Ellie from getting whatever Olivia had. That Wednesday, my Aunt Cindy came by to help me tend the girls and again to try and limit Olivia's exposure to Ellie. We ended up bringing Olivia in to the doctor's office that day because she had developed a pretty horrible sounding cough, that she really struggled with at night. She would wake up and would cough as hard as she could for 15 minutes straight. Additionally, I knew she wasn't feeling well. During the day she would often just sit down wherever she was and start to sob. She has been sick before, but she was really not feeling well.

The doctor diagnosed her with bronchiolitis, which is a swelling of the tiny tubes in the lungs. In order to treat the bronchiolitis, Olivia was given a breathing treatment in the doctor's office that was supposed to help open up her airways. Additionally, we were send home with a nebulizer and a prescription for additional breathing treatments at home, that we would have to do about 4 times a day. Each treatment took about 15 minutes to complete, and consisted of a mist that Olivia would have to breath in through a mask. At first, it wasn't the easiest to get her to sit still and breath the treatment, but she became quite the champ and would sit so well for the entire time.



The doctor also informed us that the most common cause of bronchiolitis in children is a virus - Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV). RSV is a common virus, but it can cause pretty serious disease in very young children, so we were very worried about Ellie coming down with it. Unfortunately for us, that very night - Wednesday - Ellie woke up with a cough. I just knew that she had come down with the virus. The next day, although she was coughing a little and sounding a bit congested, Ellie was doing pretty well. That night however, she had a really rough night. She barely slept, and I couldn't get her to eat at all. By 7 AM then next morning, I had decided that I needed to take her to the Emergency Room at our local children's hospital - Primary Children's Medical Center. Jeremy had to go to work that day, and we had to scramble to find someone to watch Olivia. Luckily for us, Jeremy called my grandparents, who live in Bountiful, and they were willing to jump in the car right away and come down and watch Olivia all day for us.

When we arrived at the ER, Ellie was able to be seen pretty much right away. She was tested for RSV, and was indeed positive, and she received her first of what would be many, many deep nasopharyngeal (NP) suctionings. These NP suctionings consist of a small tube being inserted through the nose to the very back of the throat. A suction is then applied that removes the mucous from the nose and upper throat, so that the baby can breath better. These suctionings are not very comfortable, as you can imagine - poor Ellie bawled her eyes out - and they cause the baby to gag and cough. Of course, that is actually what you want, because they then cough up more mucous that can be suctioned out. It was absolutely horrific to watch her be suctioned, but she experienced immediate relief right after. She could breath so much better, was able to eat, and fell asleep right away.


The doctor talked to me about admitting Ellie to the hospital for a 24-hour observation. RSV can turn very serious very quickly in little babies, and he thought that it would be a good idea to keep an eye on her for at least 24 hours since she was so early in the course of the illness, and would most likely get a little worse before she started to recover. At about noon that day, Ellie and I were finally transfered into the Infant Medical Surgical Unit on the 4th floor.



I, of course, was going to be staying at the hospital with Ellie. My sister was kind enough to come up from Provo that night to help watch Olivia so that Jeremy could come visit us, and bring me some much needed supplies :) Ellie was hooked up to several monitors that monitored her oxygen saturation, her heart rate, and her breathing. She required deep suctioning about every 3-4 hours, which was hard to sit by and watch, but she always did so well after.



The next day, when the doctors came by to check on Ellie, I was told that usually with RSV, children will get worse and worse until about day 4 or 5 of their illness, at which point they tend to start to improve. We were just starting day 3, and with how often she was requiring suctioning, and with how much mucous they were getting out, they decided to keep her another day. That was the first time I think I really realized that we would be in the hospital for a while.

Just like the doctors said, she did get a little worse each day. After a couple of days in the hospital, she required some oxygen to keep her breathing rate in the appropriate range. All in all, though, our stay in the hospital was a good experience, as weird as it is to say that. All of the doctors and nurses took such good care of her, and me - as I started to get sick while there, too. There were so many resources and supports for me in the hospital and at home. We had family and friends really step up to help us take care of Olivia and allow Jeremy to keep working.



After 5 days in the hospital, Ellie was finally released. She was send home with oxygen, since her respiratory rate was still a bit elevated on room air. The next week at home was still pretty difficult, as she was still really sick. Additionally, the oxygen, which she stayed on for 5 days at home, didn't make things any easier. Ellie and I stayed downstairs and I slept on the couch at night because it was easier than bringing the oxygen machine up and down the stairs every night and morning. She was still very congested and had a nasty cough. I needed to suction her with a bulb suction often, and we had to bring her back to the hospital a couple of times for another couse of deep suctioning.

On a happier note, both Ellie and Olivia are doing much better, and we were able to spend today with friends and family after Ellie's baby blessing.



We are so grateful for the support that we have received over the past few weeks. This trial would have been so much more difficult to bear without so many people willing to give of their time to help us out. We truly are blessed, and looking forward to a perhaps much LESS eventful future three weeks!