Seven months old and a cold

Looks like Cayden has come down with his first cold.  So much for my (unrealistic?) hope to keep him away from all germs until his immune system has a chance to mature when he’s about a year old.  At first we thought it was another episode of reflux and subsequent aspiration, but when he really started fussing while eating, showing signs of decreased appetite, getting really congested, and then not sleeping at all on Monday night, I knew it was time to take him to the doctor to have him checked out. 

So on Tuesday morning, I called and spoke to the nurse at the Special Care Clinic and she evaluated him over the phone.  I had Cayden on my chest while I was talking and she could hear him wheezing.  She was concerned and said we should definitely either bring him in there or take him to the ER.  They were able to get him in that afternoon although we saw a neonatal nurse practitioner instead of Dr. Rosenberg.  Glenda, the NNP, was awesome.  She examined him, asked a lot of questions, and did a spot room air check on him.  The conclusion was that although all of the changes in breast milk, formula, and thickener may have lead to some fussiness, and although he may have had a reflux/aspiration episode that lead to some congestion, they were still pretty sure this was the start of a cold.  The respiratory therapist added that they’ve seen several cases of bronchiolitis this month, even though the season for it typically ends in early spring, and that could well be what he had.  They told us to bump up his oxygen from 1/32 to 1/16 of a liter and keep him on it continuously and try to keep his nose suctioned out, but other than that, there wasn’t a lot we could do and we’d just have to let it run its course over the next ten days or so. 

My biggest fear since he came home has been that he’d get sick and wind up back in the hospital, but thankfully, Glenda said he should do just fine.  I guess we’re lucky that we’ve made it over three months at home and seven months total without him getting sick, especially considering Jamison has been sick so much.

Cayden hasn’t been eating as much as usual since being sick.  He had a runny nose and was coughing so much sometimes it made him scream and cry and then spit up, but it seems the worst is over.  He’s been sleeping a lot, so that makes it hard to feed him as often as we normally would, and he just doesn’t seem to have much of an appetite, so he doesn’t take as much at each feeding.  Today (well, technically now it’s Sunday, so yesterday), he took a total of 600 ccs, so that’s much better than the 450 he had been averaging during the worst of it, and not too far off from the goal of about 650 ccs we’d like him to get each day.  He’s been sleeping through the night again, so that’s a relief too.  We have a follow up appointment with Dr. Rosenberg on Tuesday, so we’ll see how they think he’s doing then.

One other change the NNP made was changing his reflux medication from Prevacid to Prilosec.  I had mentioned how Cayden really seemed to hate taking his Prevacid doses, and Glenda said that first of all, she and Dr. Rosenberg were both surprised at how low of a dose he was on and second, that sometimes babies tolerate another medicine better.  She suspected and I confirmed that our pediatrician never adjusted the dose as Cayden’s weight increased, so the amount he was getting was too little to help, and clearly, he still needed the full dose.  So she changed him over to Prilosec, increased the dose to match his weight, and it really seems to have helped with the reflux.  He still doesn’t like taking it, but it’s no worse than the Prevacid, and we’re only giving it to him once a day rather than twice, like before.

Sadly, my right-hand woman, Steene, is leaving tomorrow.  I just don’t know how I’m going to adjust to having to do it all on my own again once Jason goes back to work in a couple days.  She’s been a tremendous help these past two weeks.  Not only will I miss the help, but I’ll miss the company too.