A First, But One I Would Have Liked to Skip

First of all, I sure didn't mean for there to be such a lag between post #300 and #301. Secondly, I intended my first post of the new year to be positive and uplifting. That will have to wait.

Andrew is pretty sick right now.

He has been teething, as his bottom two teeth have finally poked through. He has handled it really well, making no fuss whatsoever, just being especially drooly. Thursday night while we were at the hockey game he coughed a few times, but it seemed like he was just coughing on all of his drool so we weren't overly concerned. Yesterday morning Andrew seemed like maybe he might be a little congested, but he was still happy and hungry so I didn't think anything about it.

Yesterday afternoon I had duty outside the school at parent pick up and I was able to get a peek at Andrew when his babysitter drove through to pick up a kid. He looked sleepy in the car seat, but managed a small smile. A couple of hours later when I picked him up he seemed sleepy, but also seemed pretty content. A little bit after arriving home I called the babysitter to confirm the time of his last feeding, and because he had coughed again, I asked if he had been doing it throughout the day. She said no. I fed Andrew, but he wasn't nearly as enthusiastic as he normally is and didn't finish the bottle. He went to sleep in the pack-n-play in the family room. About an hour later he woke up really whining and complaining. B checked on him and noticed he was hot. We checked and he had a fever of 101.5 and B said we were leaving to go to the pediatric urgent care. I was really mellow about the whole thing and thought we should make a phone call first to see if that was really necessary. B wanted to race out the door though because Andrew's breathing seemed a little funny. He was very whiny and inconsolable and seemed to be having trouble moving air out. We gave him a little Tylenol and hit the road.

By the time we got to the pediatric urgent care Andrew was a new baby. He was smiling, cooing, and blowing bubbles. When they checked his temperature, which was only 1/2 hour after we left the house, it was 99.5. As soon as the doctor listened to his chest and heard the wheezing he diagnosed bronchialitis and set about getting him on a nebulizer and searching for the cause. Fortunately, Andrew doesn't have RSV. However, the blood test to see whether he is fighting a bacterial or viral infection was inconclusive as his white blood count was borderline. Andrew's chest x-ray also didn't look too bad, so we were sent home with a nebulizer, antibiotics and the breathing medication.

So now we console an unhappy baby, make him miserable with breathing treatments, and wait for him to feel better. I tell you though, I don't think anyone is more traumatized by the whole situation than B. For once he was the panicky one and I was too relaxed about everything.