RSV & Pneumonia

My poor baby is sick, really sick.

Jackson got progressively worse all of last week.  By Saturday night he was terrible, and still running fever since last Tuesday evening. Jackson's little teething/cold from Friday had turned into something fierce. He was gagging and gasping for air. His cough quickly turned into a bark, and the wheezing about gave me a panic attack.

On Sunday the breathing treatments were not helping - at all.  I took Jackson to an urgent care and the doctor said that Jackson had RSV and/or Mycoplasma pneumonia. He didn't even run tests of him because he was so "text book". We left the urgent care and headed to our trusty pharmacy for more prescriptions.

More antibiotics, more oral steroids, more breathing treatments.

Sunday and Monday night were rough. Watching your child struggle to breath is so hard. I just want to crawl inside of his body and breath for him. When we woke up Tuesday morning, I went straight to our pediatrician's office. I just didn't see any improvement in Jackson and holding him down for 15 minutes, every 4 hours for a breathing treatment was wearing me down.

Our pediatrician was in shock when he saw us. He could not believe that Jackson's little cold turned into this - He confirmed that Jackson definitely has pneumonia and tested positive for RVS.

Jackson got a big shot of stronger antibiotics in his thigh. Then a stronger steroid breathing treatment...which scared all of the babies in the waiting room. Poor boy had just had enough, not to mention he also had an allergic reaction to the shot in his thigh. So, now we're doing a inhaler instead of the breathing machine, and this makes Momma happy!

After Jackson's pretty traumatic doctors appointment, we dropped off more prescriptions to be filled and then headed to the hospital to have some lab work done. We're all concerned as to why Jackson keeps getting so sick. Jackson was not happy when they had to draw his blood, but luckily the lab was next door to the gift shop so I got Jackson a lot of balloons:)

Today was a better day. The antibiotics seem to be doing their job and Jackson is breathing much easier! We got his blood test results back this afternoon, which just confirmed his diagnosis and didn't find anything wrong or alarming. Thank you, God!

I've been working from home all week, and trying to keep Jackson quiet. The more active he is, the more he wheezes. Surprisingly, I have been able to get a lot of work done. I'm hardly sleeping so I can listen for Jackson's breathing, so I have a lot of time to work!

I can't help but wonder if Jackson's having all of these respiratory issues because he was born 4 weeks early. I hate that my body wasn't able to cook him as long as he needed to be. And although he looked perfectly healthy and was almost 8 pounds, maybe his lungs needed more time.

I'm seriously considering putting Jackson in a bubble, for the next 18 years!