Monday, December 6, 2010

Poor Caleb

On November 12th Caleb had his first hospital stay. Poor little guy had been sick for 2 weeks with a cough and fever when he stopped eating and drinking that we finally decided to take him into urgent care. The doctor at the Urgent Care took an X-ray of his chest, diagnosed him with pneumonia and told me that he was not getting enough oxygen so we needed to get him checked into the hospital right away.

Since we know a great Children's hospital (Cardon Children's Medical Center), we opted to go there. We were in the Emergency Room for a few hours while they prepared a bed for Caleb and went over medical history, etc.

The few hours we spent there were the toughest. Caleb was very combative and did not want anything to do with all the oxygen masks, cords and all the things that go along with measuring how his little body was doing (blood pressure, oxcimeter, etc). His oxygen levels were in the 80s when they should have been 98-100. He was dehydrated, extremely tired and very overwhelmed with so many people coming at him with different tests. Poor kid just didn't understand what was happening. :(

Once he was transferred to the Pediatric ICU, the doctor on call there told us that the best way to help him rest would be to sedate him so he wouldn't fight off the oxygen mask as well as the other tests (more x-rays, bloodwork, IVs) they needed to do. This proved to be great because Caleb settled right down instead of working so hard to get everything off of him. He ended up being sedated for 2 full days and slowly weaned off of it so he could do breathing treatments and begin to heal his little lungs.

Justin, being the great Dad and husband he is, decided to stay most of the nights with him. Isn't he the best?

Caleb did have lots of visitors, presents and treats....which he loved once he woke up :-) 


Uncle Tyson stopped by to help give him a blessing. Poor buddy looks so tired. 

The next day he woke up very slowly and was very mellow but still loved to watch his movies!

He wanted to cuddle a lot, which Mom always loves. :)

My parents.

After 3 days Caleb was finally able to get out of bed and go for a ride around the ICU. He was too weak to walk so we took him for a ride in the wagon. He loved getting out of the room! He was only permitted to go a little ways but he kept pointing in different directions to go for a longer walk. 

The next day he was allowed to go outside! Yea for fresh air! 
Craig & Crystal stopped by so Justin and I could spend time with the other kids at home for a night. Thanks guys! Crystal does respite and habilitation for Caleb. She's fabulous!

Miss Amanda (his former teacher of 2 years) heard that he was sick and she came by 2 nights to keep him company, cheer him up and even brought him a present. He adores her! 

After 4 days in the same place, it looks like this little boy is feeling better! We wish that were enough for him to come home. His oxygen levels were still too low to let him go just yet. But at least his personality was coming back!

Finally, after 7 days of being in the ICU Caleb was able to come home! They sent us home with breathing treatments every 6 hours as well as other antibiotics to help him fight off any further infections. Caleb was so excited to bust outta there! 

He was so happy to go home, sleep in his bed and be with his family again. We love you Caleb and are so happy you are healthy again! No more pneumonia! 

It was a kind-of a weird feeling to be back in the hospital again. I told this to a few people, but I remember walking into Caleb's room and almost feeling happy...knowing that we'd be leaving in a few days and not coming back...I knew that we'd be leaving without any diagnosis of cancer. And that was a comforting feeling to me. I know it might sound odd, but it was just a feeling that everything would be okay. We needed to get Caleb better then things would go back to normal. Or as "normal" as our crazy life is. :-) Anyway, this time with Caleb being so sick made me appreciate him and be truly thankful for this sweet little boy. 
We love you Caleb!



2 comments:

Steph said...

Poor kiddo! That must have been rough on him, and rough on you to have a kid in the hospital again. I'm so glad he's better!

Maria Jones said...

Sorry to here about Caleb. So glad he's doing better. I also can't believe you only have 29 days to go. That was the quickest pregnancy ever. Miss you all.