Thursday, February 5, 2009

Prayer for our little one

This will be quick given all that is going on at our house.  It seems that BJ now has RSV (respiratory synctial virus).  It is a bronchiolitis or a virus that causes inflammation in the smaller airways in his lungs.  It has been causing him to cough, wheeze, suck in the skin around his ribs when he breathes (retractions), and have a hard time breathing.  I took him to the doctor on Tues. and found his oxygenation level (O2 sat) was at 88%- low even for Denver.  He got an albuterol neb and got back up to  99%.  So for the last two days he has had nebulizers every 4 hours.  Yesterday he was seen again, and they recommended we treat his infected face ezcema with an antibiotic with the hopes that we will avoid an ear infection while treating his face.  Also, since his ezcema is so bad they recommended I try cutting out all dairy for 2 weeks to see if that might help.  We also got a steroid cream for his skin, but I'm going to try the dairy thing first- otherwise I won't know if it helped or the cream did.  So he gets nebs every 4 hours, antibiotics every 6, on top of trying to eat, sleep, and oh yeah, breathe.  Luckily he is still mostly playful and smiling, but many kids need hospitalization for this virus.  I guess another baby at daycare has it too.  The other sad thing is that there is some belief that this puts him at a higher risk for developing asthma- so you can pray we avoid that- although his genes aren't helping him out there.  Asthma, allergies, and ezcema are a triad called atopy and both his parents have the latter two.  The doctor's office is watching him closely- appointments daily until he gets over the hump- and Brandon and I are keeping  a close eye on him as well.  Nights are worse for his symptoms, although he slept a little better last night.  I'm still fighting a cold (which could also be a variant of RSV- it looks different when you aren't an infant), so all the prayers would be great.  Luckily work has been flexible, knowing I need to be with my litttle one.  Thanks for your prayers, I'll try to keep you updated.

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