To exhausted and beyond...

(I'm not responsible for any typos in this post. I'm running on very little sleep over the course of almost a week! Watch out for rambling too!)

What a week it's been. One that I hope we never have to go through again.

On Tuesday Drew woke up with a tiny little cough. Nothing that we were really worried about. We just assumed he had another cold. As the day went on he couldn't keep anything down and I started to notice that his breathing looked a little off. At about 5:00 p.m. he was scaring me. His breathing was worse and he was starting to act funny. He kept humming and laughing, but not in a good way. It was just odd. I don't even know how to explain it. I got him dressed and flew out the door. The drive to the emergency room was a trip down memory lane of my racing days minus the #19 on the side of the vehicle.

We got to the emergency room and when they brought him in the little room to check his vitals the nurse told me, "It's a good thing you brought him in. He's fighting to breath." WHAT! I knew he was sick but never thought it would be at that level! They immediately took him into a room and put him on oxygen. The rest of that night was torture for all of us. Watching his pulse oxygen levels stay in low numbers, the three attempts to get an IV in his arm, the three times they had to re-wrap his IV because he kept trying to pull it off, getting the oxygen tubes in his nose...not a good evening. By the end of the night whenever a nurse would walk in the room, Drew would flip out. I've never felt so helpless. It was awful. He kept crying "I want my Mommy!" over and over. I hated that I couldn't do anything to help and nothing seemed to comfort him. Usually they only let one parent stay overnight in the room but they said that since I was 8 months pregnant both Mike and I could stay and I could sleep in the bed with him. I don't know if I ever really slept or if I just hung around in that half asleep, half awake stage all night. (I'm pretty sure that I've been stuck in that state since then!)

(Usually this isn't something I would have taken pictures of. It's not like I made sure I had my camera in tow before we left to go to the emergency room or ran home and got it. I'm not that die-hard of a scrapbooker! The store had borrowed my camera the day before and Stacey returned it when she visited. I swear I'm not crazy-capture-everything-picture-lady!)



To make a really long story short we ended up staying in the hospital for three days. The first night was rough, especially seeing him hooked up to so many monitors and IVs. We started to feel a little better the next day since he was pretty playful and they took him off the IV fluids and oxygen. He even had a cookie picnic with Mom and played in the play room for a long time. He seemed to be doing really well but we had to stay so they could monitor his breathing through the night. As soon as he could make it through the night without having to be on oxygen we could go home. We thought he would get to go home after the second night since he was doing really well but at about 3:00 a.m. the alarms went off and he had to go back on oxygen.

When they did finally send us home I freaked out. I was terrified to take him home. Mike made me laugh a little in my head when I had my break down episode before we left. There I was in tears and he said, "um, do I need to hug you or something?" What a goof ball. I knew at some point I would have a good little cry I just didn't know when it would hit. I've always kind of had the Scarlett O'Hara mentality about the tough things in life. That whole - I can't think about it right now, I'll think about it tomorrow - thing. I guess normal people would call it denial...

Being home isn't really any better than being at the hospital. Let's just say that I'm not getting anymore sleep here than I did there. I'm watching him like a hawk! If he's sleeping then I can't. I go in his room every hour to check on him. I know that he's fine but when you've just watched your child spend three days in the hospital due to breathing issues it's kind of hard not to want to watch him every second. It just scary being here and not having an alarm going off to let us know when something is wrong. I beginning to forget what sleep feels like. Add in being 8 months pregnant and I'm beyond exhausted!

We never got a for sure diagonsis but we do know that everything should be fine. Right now they are saying something along the lines of viral asthma and we will find out more at his doctor appointment. He's on so many medications that I've had to write down the times he's taken each one because I'm terrified that I'll mess up or forget something. I'll be glad when we are done with all of those. Right now we look like a pharmacy! Thank goodness he's been really good about taking everything. I can't imagine how hard it would be if he struggled every time we had to give him something.

Anyway, this turned into a super long post. Thank you so much to everyone who called or asked about Drew. It's very much appreciated!