Pneumonia :(

A couple weeks ago Kyler got a cold. He was coughing and had lots of nasal congestion. I kept him home from preschool on the 11th because of it. I was really worried about Caden getting it so we were extra vigilant about having Kyler wash his hands. We were also going crazy wiping everything down and disinfecting things. Unfortunately it wasn't enough... By the 13th (Saturday), Caden started coughing and having a little trouble breathing. I immediately started his nebulizer breathing treatments in order to hopefully catch this and stop the severity.

By Sunday night I was getting more worried. In our area right now there are a lot of sick kids with pneumonia and RSV and both of those could be really dangerous for Caden. I didn't want to take him to an urgent care or ER because he would only be exposed to many more germs. So I decided to wait until 1st thing Monday morning to call his pulmonologist's office and try to get in to see him. Thankfully they got us in right away. He did an exam and told me Caden appeared to just have a bad cold. He said it didn't look like RSV and he said it definitely wasn't pneumonia... yet... He put Caden back on oxygen at night (we had stopped the night oxygen a couple weeks prior to that) and we started a more rigid regimen of breathing treatments as well as steroids in hopes of keeping the cold under control.

By Wednesday morning he definitely seemed to be better and I was relieved. We started to resume normal activities and he seemed okay, just sleeping a little more than normal. However, Thursday he was coughing more and sounded worse overall. By that night he was significantly worse. After 3:30 am, he didn't sleep at all. He was coughing a lot, in respiratory distress and had a fever of 102.4. But I still wanted to avoid the ER. So I called the pulmonologist's answering service at 5:45 and they put me right through to him. We already had an appointment to see him as a follow-up on Friday afternoon at 1 pm. I told him what was going on and he told me to give him another dose of steroid, give him another breathing treatment and bring him into the office at 7:30 am.

Greg had already left for a meeting at the church so I packed both the boys in the car and drove to the doctor's office. Greg met me there and took Kyler back to the church with him. Caden's home health nurse met us at the doctor's office as well. The doctor said Caden most likely had pneumonia and he sent us to get a chest x-ray for confirmation. After we got the chest x-ray, we took it back to the doctor's office and he confirmed it was pneumonia. :( I asked if there was any way we could treat him at home in order to avoid a hospitalization. I wanted to keep him at home if at all possible.

Luckily the doctor was in 100% agreement with us. He said he thought it would be better for Caden to remain at home as long as he responded to his medications. So I went to the pharmacy and forked over $100 in medications and started administering them to my poor little man. By Saturday his breathing definitely seemed better and by Sunday he had absolutely turned a corner for the better. I could tell he was on the road to recovery at that time. We followed all the doctor's orders to make sure he didn't regress at all. He continued to improve steadily.

On Monday he was pretty much back to his normal sweet self. He was playing happily and scooting around the house. Since he was still on continuous oxygen, we attached our extra long tubing to the oxygen concentrator. The machine is in his room, but it allowed him to move freely around the house and play almost like normal. Of course I had to untangle him periodically but at least it was mostly back to normal.

Then this morning (Tuesday) I took him back to his pulmonologist for a follow-up. He said his lungs had “significant improvement” which is FANTASTIC! And, he had us change the oxygen to “as needed,” discontinued the steroid (which makes him a little beast!). And, two of his breathing treatments are also only “as needed.” So we are left with completing his dose of antibiotics, Pulmicort twice/day and Singulair once/day for the next couple months. I would say that is improvement!

God is so good to us. He made sure we could get Caden treated on Friday before the weekend in order to avoid a hospitalization. If he had taken a turn for the worse on Friday night, we would have had to go to the ER and most certainly would have ended up with Caden being hospitalized. And, once Caden was receiving medication to treat the pneumonia, he responded relatively quickly. Our little man is such a blessing and I am so grateful for the progress he has made in his recovery.

Getting this respiratory infection was our worst fear come true. This is what we've been trying to protect Caden from for the last year. We have kept him at home and isolated for 5 of the last 12 months in order to keep him healthy. I think we have done a pretty good job. I think it is a blessing that he didn't get sick before now. At least now he is older and stronger and can fight it off a little easier. Thank you all for your continued prayers as we still need them. Caden is such a fighter but he has a lot of obstacles stacked against him. We know God has plans for him because he has overcome so much already.