Update on Fischer

Monday's doctor appointment was short lived because the doctor sent us immediately to get admitted into the pediatrics department of the hospital.

Fischer was breathing over 80 breaths per minute (they said they consider anything over 40 as "rapid breathing") and he was wheezing so bad that when the doctors would listen to his chest they couldn't even hear his heart beating over the wheeze. The boy was working hard at the whole breathing thing.

The doctor at the hospital asked what medications he was on (Prednisone and an Albuterol inhaler) and he said to stop both of those immediately and he drew up testing for Pertussis, RSV, and a number of other things. He said that the steroids wouldn't help at all if he had RSV (which is what he suspected) and there was a possibility that they could be making it more difficult for him to heal because it put his body under even more stress - so stopping those was definitely welcomed by both Jeff and I.

The test for RSV came back positive, which meant that stopping the steroids was a good call (finally - someone made a good call!) and we could see Fischer's struggles start to lesson right away. His breaths were still labored and he was definitely still wheezing (it's been 5 days since then and he's still wheezing) but he was just more...himself...and quickly seemed less, I don't know, sick.

We ended up staying overnight at the hospital because they wouldn't let him go home without observing him for at least that long and making sure that his gains continued and that he didn't take another turn for the worse (he didn't). We were so grateful that Fischer got a good night's sleep that night. Jeff and I crammed ourselves together on the hard bench seat (fully clothed from the day - we weren't planning on an all-night event happening that day) and tried to call it a night, too, but sleep didn't come easily for us that night because we were so worried about our little guy. Thankfully he just kept improving and we got to go home mid-morning on Tuesday.

It's been quite the week with our littlest man, but we're so thankful that he seems to be improving more and more each day and hopefully we've seen the worst of it.

Thanks for all your prayers!