All Things Haley: Daddy Month - Day 20

Another Caleb update by Mommy...and this time to say "We're home!". I wish I could say that they sent us home because he was completely fine and definitely recovered...but we all know that's too easy. They sent us home because none of their treatments were what little man needed. They couldn't do anything at the hospital that we couldn't do at home. Which I still say is much better than the alternative- needing to be at the hospital to get better.

The steroid shot they gave C at the doctor's office yesterday morning on the way to sending us to the hospital helped quite a bit. It was meant to open his airway and bring the inflammation down so he could breathe better and hopefully eat better. When we got to the hospital, I tried to feed him again and he ate really well! Of course, really well for him right now means pulling off of the bottle every three seconds to take a breath/let his throat settle down...or something like that. His throat is really red, probably from the cough, so that's a big point of pain for little dude.

At that point, they were talking about still wanting to do an IV because it had been a while since he had a wet diaper, but about six hours later when they finally got us to the treatment room to put the IV in, he had three wet diapers! Unfortunately, they still went ahead with trying the IV, which was a huge mistake. He's a chubby little guy, and baby veins are already hard to find. They tried his right arm and spent a good six or seven minutes trying to thread the IV line into his vein once it was already in his arm. He screamed and screamed and his poor little arm turned purple! They had to squeeze it so hard that his entire arm is now covered in red dots, broken capillaries. Once they had three separate nurses try to thread that horrible IV line, they called it quits on his arm. Then it was on to the foot. Another two punctures and a ridiculous amount of time spent moving that needle around in his foot, they decided they couldn't do an IV on Caleb. They drew some blood (it's much easier to get a vein with that needle rather than threading the IV line) and called it quits. All of that for nothing!! I felt so bad for him. He was completely hoarse by the end of it and looked at me with such sadness in his eyes. Oh I had to hold back the tears the entire time. He was already not feeling good...

They also talked about giving him several different types of breathing treatments, but after a lot of suction and even one deep suction with a catheder, they found that most of his congestion is up in his nose and throat and not in his chest. So the breathing treatments wouldn't do much for him.

They made us stay over night for observation and to make sure that he wouldn't start having chest congestion/wheezing or stop eating again. This morning, our pediatrician came to see him, confused as ever about what to do with this little boy, and sent us home. They gave him one more steroid shot before we left and told us to continue his antibiotics for another week. He is still doing probiotics twice a day and we're supposed to give him tylenol or advil when he needs it.

He's still got a horrible cough that they're saying is croup. His ear infections have gotten a lot better, one is still hanging on but getting there. His throat is probably what's causing him to cry whenever he's awake...poor guy!!!

It's good to be home and back in our routine. He hardly slept last night and wouldn't go down at bedtime, I'm guessing because he was in a hospital gown and I couldn't get the room very dark with all of those monitors. Finally around 9pm he fell asleep and was up every 30 minutes or hour until 3am. Then he gave me about a three hour stretch, but I had a really hard time sleeping after that rough night.

I'm so grateful that my Mom and Dad could come up to help yesterday and my Mom came again today so I could take a nap after getting home!!! I know my parents were going out to dinner tonight for their 35th wedding anniversary, so I'm so appreciative that they were willing to put that off for a bit so Mom could help.

I missed Gracie more than I can say. She smiled so big when I first saw her, and I love that. I held her a lot tonight which always helps. She's growing up so fast- that little lady is in everything now and incredibly curious. She at a bunch of solids tonight and is still going through a massive growth spurt so she's always hungry! Tonight I gave her an entire jar of bananas and a half of a jar of sweet potatoes! She didn't refuse one bit and had a great time playing in her food :)

Thanks of course to Daddy for holding down the fort and cleaning the entire house while we were in the hospital. It was awesome that he could come and see Caleb and I for a bit yesterday, we miss him too much when we're apart like that!!

Here's to a much better week this week than last, what do you think???