Eventful week

I was going to write a post about the busy week we've just had. The babies' social calendar was fairly packed: we had events on Tuesday (Rhyme Time at the library) and Thursday (an event at the Book Festival) and two on Friday (Toddler Group resumed and then a kids' party), saw family on Wednesday,  Saturday and Sunday, and then on Monday, another playgroup resumed after the summer. I've been missing the regular groups while they've been off for the holiday, but by about Saturday I was feeling rather depleted from all the socialising and definitely wasn't at my best.

However, all this has rather paled in importance because the Peanut isn't well and has been admitted to hospital.

He's had a mild cold for a few days, and now that I think about it, he was probably working up to it last week too. He was pretty tired on Thursday and Friday, although mostly his usual cheerful self. On Monday he had been OK during the day, though snotty, but in the evening he had been tired and miserable; the Sweetpea chose that day to cut her first tooth, so we had two cross babies!

Over the weekend, he had started to cough a bit, and last night the coughing was bad and he didn't settle down to sleep well. He kept waking halfway and crying and screaming; it was difficult to calm him down because he wasn't fully awake. We would lift him out of his cot for a cuddle and he'd thrash and struggle, and only calm down when he was put back in. All this made him rather hot and sticky and he was rather breathless. We were giving him Calpol and ibuprofen as we usually do for bad colds, but it didn't seem to be helping much. What with all of this, we didn't get much sleep (and the Sweetpea was sharing our bed, because we were worried that the noise from her brother would wake her up too.)

At about 6am, the Peanut woke up and was evidently much worse. He couldn't draw a full breath at all; his chest was sucking in between his ribs (which I've been told is a sign that breathing is very hard). He had thrown up earlier in the night, and he did so again. Anyway, we were alarmed enough to call an ambulance.

The paramedics arrived very quickly and tested the boy's oxygen levels, which were a bit low. They treated him with a facemask which they said had a mixture of medication and oxygen, and he took this very calmly. He was very interested in the interior of the ambulance, particularly the lights in the ceiling, though not as excited as he usually is when he sees a "nee-naw" in the course of normal events, poor kid.

Since the Sweetpea was asleep and she's still on breastmilk and nothing else, I stayed at home and the boys went off to the hospital. Once there, the Peanut had nebulizer treatments and then an asthma inhaler at regular intervals. In the late morning, I got in to see him; my parents took the Sweetpea off to their house and I was able to spend a few hours there.

He is doing a lot better, but still not getting as much oxygen by himself as he needs. Apparently they won't discharge him until he can keep his levels above 92% on his own, and the inhaler can be reduced to every four hours. I don't know how long this is likely to take. Part of the trouble is that exertion seems to make him wheezy again, but he feels sufficiently better that he wants to play and run about. He's been allowed to do this a bit, but for a lot of the time he's supposed to be hooked up to a blood-oxygen monitor, and he's supposed to rest so his heart rate will come down (the nebulizer treatments can make it race, apparently). This is not really compatible with running about or bouncing up and down on his cot like a caged monkey.

My mum stayed with him for a while this evening while J took a break to come home and get a shower and something to eat. This was really helpful. I can't think how we'd have managed without my parents today.

Anyway, I really hope he's better tomorrow; I think it'll be much easier to entertain him at home. Apparently there are a few little kids with similar symptoms in the hospital at the moment; I hope we didn't infect everyone at toddler group.