Chest X-rays and stuff

On Sunday, Charlie was a little sickly. He had a fever on Monday so we kept him home. On Tuesday morning he was chipper and funny and his forehead felt normal so we sent him off to daycare. I enjoyed a carefree day of working out, lunch, browsing Lincoln avenue retail and shopping at Trader Joes.

And then I picked up Charlie from daycare to find that he had just thrown up. Holding him, I realized his skin felt as warm as the dishwasher during plate warmer cycle. He was crying and miserable. I had guilt for not calling mid-day......Well, I took him home to find he had a temp of 103. I called the doc and could not track him down so I called my father in law, retired ped. and expert on all things kids and health. Joe had some good advice on tylenol and asthma meds (cause the boy was lightly wheezing on top of all this) and I put little man to bed after he fell asleep at the nebulizer. I felt ready for a night of heavy baby sleep and I prepared to paint my toenails and fold some shirts.

Well, Charlie was up an hour later, crying, snotting, coughing and breathing super fast. What followed was a night of little sleep and lots of crying and genuine fear over the hard, fast breathing. I could see the clear demarcation in the little guy's chest/stomach line. I was terrified. He would breath hard while crying and then calm down, sleep a little, and wheez less. Then he would wake up and start again. Rob didn't get home until 1am (working on a project in the studio) and I went back and forth about whether to go to the hospital. When Rob got home, we decided against it. We had a long, long night, all of us.

In the morning, we kept Charlie home again and called the doc, securing an afternoon appt. Charlie was crabby most of the day and ate and drank very little. When we got to the doc's, the nurse said he would be out until Friday with a family emergency. If you don't want to wait until Friday, she said, and you want to rule out things like pneumonia (yikes!), then I would go to Children's. Well, shit. What was I supposed to do? I went.

Charlie and I spent 3 hours in the ER at Children's memorial where several nice medical professionals deduced that 1.)he does not have pneumonia or another life-threatening illness, 2) he isn't wheezing too much but probably was due to the cold/virus he caught 3)he probaby has asthma (well, duh.........). They did, in fact, find quite a bit of mucus in his chest, thanks to an X-ray, and now he is taking a heavy duty asthma med for the next 3 days

He should feel better soon. Tonight, he seemed back to his silly self, acting goofy at the dinner table and, thankfully, eating dinner.

Poor sweet boy. BEing wrapped and taped and hooked up to stuff at the hospital pretty much scared the fever right out of him. I can't wait til he feels better and we can climb jungle gyms and jump in pools.

I also cannot wait to end the non-stop Thomas the tank engine marathon happening on our television.

I do plan to spoil him with a reasonably priced toy from Target for being such a brave little boy, or, as Thomas would say, a brave little engine.