RSV is the Worst!!

Cooper has RSV.  He came home from school on Wednesday in the best mood.  My parents were in town and he was SO happy to see them!  He laughed and played and was just in a great mood.  We went to dinner that night.  I noticed at the restaurant that Cooper was looking a little flushed and felt a little warm, but I thought it was because the restaurant was warm and Cooper was in a sweater.  We took his temp that night and it was 102.

The next morning, he actually seemed ok.  We didn't send him to school, but after a night of sleep he didn't appear to be too sick.  That afternoon, things started to get worse.  We took his pulse ok and it was 77 and his heart rate was in the 180's, so we put him on oxygen and took his temperature.  It was 104.  By very early the next morning, we knew that we could not take care of him at home.  He needed more oxygen than we could give him, so we took him to the emergency room.

We got put into a room in the Infant/Toddler Unit pretty quickly.  We spent 2 nights there, but the nurses finally were not comfortable with the amount of care that Cooper was needing.  That unit is so big that each nurse has at least 4-5 patients and Cooper just needed to be more closely watched than that.  So he was moved to the Intermediate Care Unit.  Which is where we are now.

Every day that Cooper has been here, he has gotten worse.  His oxygen requirement continues to go up.  He started out on 6 liters of oxygen at 30% and is now up to 10 liters of oxygen at 100%.  He has an ilius, which is when his bowel becomes paralyzed because of the illness.  Last night, his temperature shot up to 103 really quickly.  His pulse ox dropped in to the 60's.  He turned purple in his extremities and was burning up in his core.  They put wet blankets on him and gave him a bolus of cold fluid to get his temperature back to normal.  The PICU doctors rushed over and he almost had to be intubated.  It was so scary.

Today is the fifth day of the illness.  I'm hoping that he is going to start turning the corner today and tomorrow.  I know that Cooper is tired of being poked and prodded.  I hope that we are out in time to enjoy the holidays.