One night, before the kids went to bed, I heard some minor coughs coming from Hayden. So, like any mom who's seen this sort of thing before, I gave him a dose of albuterol. Joshua had just finished his recommended dosage and had some left over. My mind was telling me that Hayden was getting the same thing and I thought I would get to it early.
A few hours later, Hayden was up coughing uncontrollably. It was a rough night for us, practically no sleep. Early the next morning we all headed to the pediatrician's office where she told us that the albuterol was exactly what he needed however, it was so severe that he needed to be inhaling it directly into his lungs. He was diagnosed with bronchiolitis. She made us give him a dose with the nebulizer before we left her office; she wanted to make sure we knew how to use it and she wanted to make sure he was okay. We went home. We gave him doses every 4 hours. He went to bed.
About 2 and a half hours later he was up coughing again, but this time, it looked like he was having a hard time breathing. We called the doctor. She told us to go to the emergency room. They monitored him and gave him a longer dosage of medicine. After about 3 hours they decided it was in his best interest to be admitted. They told me to stay with him....of course I was, there was no question about it. We were there for less than 24 hours, but to a 2.5 year old it might as well been a life time. We were so happy to hear that he was improving and that we could go home after dinner. We had to continue the nebulizer treatments for another week while gradually making the treatments further and further apart.
We are so glad he got better and that it wasn't anything to serious. As a parent, it has to be one of the worst feelings in the world to be helpless toward your child's medical needs. Not knowing what's going on, not knowing if it's going to work and the only comfort you can provide is in words and lots of hugs and kisses. Although, sometimes....those work better than any medicine.
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