We had a tough February this year..... Usually it would be cold, snow, and ice that plagued us but not this time.... the weather has been at a record warm. BUT that seems to have allowed the germs to survive much longer than normal. The very beginning of February the boys we invited to Great Wolf Lodge for a swimming overnight. They were so excited to go and have fun.... we packed them up and sent them off. They did indeed have a wonderful time but when they got home all the boys looked like they had been beat up. Cuts, bumps, and bruises all around.... Taylor actually had a busted lip and I worried about loose teeth. He had crashed into one of his friends heads in the wave pool. Logan had scraped his knuckles really bad on the bottom of the pool. Everyone was tired but we knew they would heal and really we weren't worried about any of it. A few days later the boys went snow skiing with the homeschool group and again had a fun day. All seemed fine that night.
Saturday morning Logan complained of flu-like symptoms. We did the usual quaratine deal and kept him in his room. He didn't want food, felt nauseous, was fever free, and could drink water.... So strange symptoms.... The next day he told me his chest was starting to hurt. Still felt horrible but seemed okay, no real fever. Tim and I decided that he should see the Dr the next day. I got on FB and checked in with one of the nurses and let her know I would be calling and to hold me an appointment if possible. She said to call first thing in the morning.
I called in and they gave me 2 options. 1) a 9:30 appointment or 2) a 4:00 appointment so I could also be seen. Logan really looked terrible and I didn't want to wait so we took the 9:30 appointment. Once we got there they quickly got us in and took his vitals. His heart rate was high but he wasn't moving air well, he also had a 100.2 fever. Dr. Watson sent us right away to Children's for a chest x-ray, I asked if we could go to the Urgent Care for this. I was sure he told me yes, I had explained that I always get lost driving to Children's in Dayton and was afraid I would have trouble getting there. He said they might keep him overnight so I ran back by the house and grabbed several things for Logan and myself "just in case". I had tried to track down Tiffany and couldn't find her so I called Racquel and asked if I could drop off Taylor and Kendall so they didn't have to go in the ER and risk picking up more germs. She said yes just as Tiffany called and was able to meet me.
Look how sick he looks......
We drove over to the Urgent Care and signed in. There wasn't an order for tests so I called the Dr office only to find that they had went to lunch. So I called around and got the nurses cell number and called her at home to see if they had ordered the tests. She told me she was sure he wanted Logan taken to a Children's Hospital not the Urgent Care..... so off we went Logan seeming slower but moving along with me. We drove down to the Liberty Campus of Children's in Cincy. It is easy to get to and I thought worse come to worse they would keep us there.
Once we got to the Liberty Campus of Children's ER and got signed in we had to wait to be seen for about 30 min. It was cheerful and bright and everyone was very nice. They immediately started having trouble getting good pulse ox numbers for Logan so they gave him a nebulizer treatment. His heartrate was over 170, pulse ox 70, bloodpressure was very low, his temp was up to 103.6 since the morning. They did 3 nebulizer treatments and oxygen without any real change so they decided to do a continual Albuterol treatment. He also was getting oxygen to help stabilize him. He really didn't like that at all, the albuterol was making him very jittery... but they continued it while we headed down for x-rays. Once they read the films they immediately dx'd him with bilateral pneumonia and sent orders to have him transferred to Children's. The facility there was not an overnight facility. We waited there till they could arrange a bed for him and then we headed out with the ambulance tech, a dr, and a rt. I had no idea that wasn't the normal way of doing things. Logan got to watch Cars on the trip down.... he liked that and asked me to take pictures of him in the ambulance... lol
Once we got to Children's things really got busy and blurry to remember on my part. We didn't go to the ER at all. Right up the elevator to the PICU, his room was ready and the team was waiting for us. They examined him and watched him for a few hours. His numbers were awful and his temp was steady but climbing again. They drew labs, had an ultra sound and decided he would need a chest tube to drain the infection from behind his lung. He was diagnosed with the Bilateral Pneumonia/Empyena. They thought either strep or staph infection was the cause. We needed to wait till morning to find out...... The chest tube proceedure was done in the room with Ketamine and versed for Logan. He did great during the procedure but had tons of trouble coming out of it.... He was so disoriented that he thought we were at a hotel.... lol He continued with hallucinations for about 30 hours. His vitals were really a mess and he felt horrible.... Everytime he would start to drift off he would wake up yanking at the leads and tubes. Finally they put "no-nos" on his elbows so he couldn't bend his arms and get at the tubes. Needless to say the first night we didn't sleep.
Continued next time.................
