More tinkles!

Brody tinkled for the first time tonight! YAY Brody!!! He finally got to have his first M&M. Poor guy has had to endure 2+ weeks of watching Tyler get rewarded dozens of times without one single M&M for himself. But tonight was his night! We are sooo proud of him! And Grammie was here visiting to help celebrate with lots of clapping from all of us afterward.

Surprisingly he accomplished this big milestone while being soooo sick. He has been sick since Monday (two days after the big party) and deteriorated fast. He has had a terrible, terrible cough, had a mild fever and threw up three times yesterday (I think due to the cough). He started wheezing yesterday which is why I took him to urgent care last night. They took a puls-ox reading on him when we arrived and it was at 93. A healthy person's is 100 and the nurse told me that a sick child usually is at 95-96 so they admitted him. When the doctor was able to see him it had dropped to 91 so they gave him a breathing treatment, which he hated, but that opened up his airways a lot so that he stopped wheezing. He screamed and screamed and succeeded in pulling the mask off by his own strength. It was awful. We had to switch positions and I held him in my lap in a bear hug with his arms by his sides and was able to keep him from taking it off for the five-minute treatment. I tried to distract him by reading a book to him and about three minutes into it he finally relaxed and looked at the pictures with me describing every detail on the pages. I was even able to let go of his one arm so that he could point to the pictures by the end of it. By the time we left (after 10 p.m.) he was back up to 93 which is still low but better. At least he wasn't wheezing anymore. Today he seems a lot better. I haven't noticed much retraction (caving in of the neck and chest) signaling labored breathing like I did yesterday and no wheezing today. We have been giving him albuterol several times a day with an inhaler tube even though he fights us like mad. He also has a prescription for prednisolone which I have been administering at home and the combination of the two is helping him on his road to recovery. So far Tyler does not have it.

I have been fighting off something similar since the day of the party. I lost my voice that day and the next day the terrible cough came on. Trying to get rest in this house is next to impossible but I was finally able to sneak away for a nap today while T&B were down for theirs. Hunter and Grammie played together so that I could finally lie down for a while. I was thinking it would be easier to get some extra rest while my mom is visiting but she's sick also. She already had something the day she arrived (Thursday). Not to mention we have had three showings on the house in the last three days, which is great, but not conducive to finding time to rest. We had so much to clean up after the party and my garden beds had been neglected for too long so I spent several days of those nap times pulling a billion weeds while Hunter jumped in the new bounce house and my mom napped. It has been a crazy week so far but hopefully everyone will be back to their usual healthy selves soon.