Another Hospital Stay

For those of you that might not know, Tessa was admitted to the hospital last night. It has been a very stressful 24 hours and we are pooped, but I wanted to take a minute to give some specifics for those of you that wouldn't mind praying specifically.

The Last Few Weeks:
Tessa has been fighting bronchitis for a couple weeks now. We went through the whole issue of her reacting badly to the initial meds they prescribed to treat it, which caused us to come home early from Kansas. The doctor called in an antacid to calm her system down and then we were finally able to start her on a 10 day round of Amoxicilian this last Friday. She had been improving nicely and we actually had really good days with her Sunday and Monday. She had an unusually rough night Monday night and woke up a little raspy Tuesday morning. We went ahead and let her go to school because her attitude and overall demeanor seemed normal.

Thought We Were Heading to Therapy:
Darin and I were headed to pick her up yesterday at 3:30 to get her to therapy by 4:00, and right before we left the house, the daycare called to let us know that she was having difficulty breathing. When we got to school it was really clear that something was terribly off. Tessa didn't even acknowledge when we got there and she was really stressed out. She wasn't breathing normally at all...everything was strained and she was grunting a lot. School also said that she had thrown up and they were afraid that she might have aspirated on the vomit because her breathing hadn't been the same since that had happened. As we headed in the direction of the doctor's office, I made a phone call and the nurse said if there was a chance she had aspirated, that we should take her straight to the ER. We were all still fairly calm at this point...we had Parker with us too, just in case we weren't going to be able to get back to school and get him picked up by 6:00.

At the Hospital by 4:00:
Tessa was in her carseat on her stroller and as we were headed inside, she quit breathing on me. I pulled her out of her carseat and took off running (some might say, like a mad-woman!). It seriously felt like a scene from a movie. I ran inside and told the nurses that my baby wasn't breathing. All she was doing was spitting bubbles out of her mouth...she was not able to take a breath in. It was the scariest thing I think I've ever been through. Immediately a nurse came bursting through the ER doors and took Tessa from me. She kept telling me "it's going to be okay Mom....it's going to be okay". They rushed her back to a room and started her on oxygen immediately.

Bringing Everything Up-To-Date:
In trying to make a really long story short...she improved a little after oxygen and a breathing treatment, but not near enough to take her home. They had done a chest xray that showed signs of RSV...but the RSV swab test had come back negative. So they weren't exactly sure what was going on with her and they admitted her around 8:00. The ER nurses tried to get an IV started before we came upstairs, but the veins blew out in each arm. This process caused Tessa a lot of stress and it was the beginning of a very long night. It seemed like Tessa was just getting worse and worse with each hour that passed. Her little body was so weak and just almost lifeless. She had cried out in pain all night long and it was so hard to watch. Every time she took a breath her chest and her stomach would just cave in. First thing this morning they got an IV going on her head and started her on enough fluid to sustain her. She had been throwing everything up for several hours. They also switched her from the regular oxygen to a high-flow oxygen that had a vaporizing affect that would help thin out her mucus and hopefully help her start moving it all around a little better. She has made nice improvements today between the new oxygen machine and the IV fluids. She finally quit vomitting and actually took her first bottle again around 3:00 this afternoon. They haven't been able to specifically determine what is going on, but Darin and I have tried to gather information from everyone we've talked to...nurses, doctors and respiratory therapists, and feel like the easiest way to describe what's going on is: bronchitis, an upper respiratory infection (potentially RSV), and a bacterial infection (potentially pneumonia due to the aspriation yesterday). The bloodwork showed a high white blood cell count which can mean a few things: infection, inflamation and/or stress. We assume she is dealing with all three. They are treating her with an antibiotic through her IV. They believe that it will help treat everything that's going on. She will have a full 24 hours worth of the oxygen treatment and then they will try and wean her off that. If she continues to improve and does well without the oxygen, best case scenario....we will get to go home sometime Friday. If anything changes...that will change too.

Wrapping It Up:
We are tired. We are so thankful for Tessa's improvements throughout the day. Our precious friends Amanda and Tyson are helping us take care of Parker. Amanda told us today that Parker and Eli had a really fun evening last night and they had fun sleeping on a pallet on the floor. Parker did go to school today and everyone was so great when he got there. He will be staying with Tyson, Amanda and Eli again tonight and hopefully be going back to school again tomorrow. When his world is turned up-side-down...we can't explain what it means to have places he can feel safe and dear friends that so graciously open their hearts and their homes to our little guy! To our family, loving and supporting us long distance, and our friends, helping us navigate life in these stressful times....please know that our hearts are full of love, appreciation and gratitude for all that you mean to us and do for us.

~Whitney