It Reared It's Ugly Head...

Rewind back to pre-Thanksgiving...

One week before leaving, both me and Clark were down and out with head colds and sore throats. Could barely get off the couch all weekend. Luckily we tag-teamed and got through it. We recovered well enough for our trip and just as expected, the kids were coughing and sniffing as soon as we arrived.

This worsened significantly over the two weeks and I'm sure the dry western climate didn't help at all. The snot was getting out of control and no one was sleeping or happy in general.

We were anxious to get home so everyone could rest and recover. Unfortunately this never happened. Two days after returning home, Caleb spiked a very high fever. Combine it with dark green snot and we were worried. Doctors thought a bacterial sinus infection of some sort so he started on antibiotics. The fever didn't break for another three days so obviously it was just viral. We were glad for that. Of course he got that weird post-virus rash all over his body which was further evidence that his fever wasn't bacteria-related.

Finally....out of the woods. I can handle the kids being sick but when the fever comes, I get pretty freaked.

One day after a broken fever, all the kids were immunized for their 15-month appointment. The next day Zachary had a fever. He has had post-shot fevers in the past so I didn't worry. Then Leah got the fever...and their fevers kept getting higher and higher. 104 was the highest. This lasted for FIVE DAYS!! We had them checked a couple times and all the doctor could find were red throats. No ear infections, no strep, no flu. So we just had to wait it out...miserably. I went through almost a whole bottle of Tylenol and Benadryl up to this point. Not because I love to drug my children but because it was absolutely necessary.

Ok so Leah had a nose surgery scheduled and if her fever didn't break at least two full days prior to surgery, she wasn't going to have the procedure. This was the procedure to fix the choanal atresia in her nose. LUCKILY the next morning (two mornings before surgery) she was fever free and remained that way until the surgery so we were good to go. Zachary's fever broke as well so all babies were back to normal temps. If we could only have gotten rid of the cold symptoms too!

Leah's surgery went flawlessly and her post-op care was pretty minimal. Saline and Nasonex twice a day! I can handle that. She was pretty tired and out of it for the 24 hours following but soon came around and was back to her old self. The surgery was pretty non-invasive. Doc just stuck a drill a little up her left nostril and chipped away at the bone covering her passageway. No bleeding, no cutting, no stitches.

Then Christmas came and we were all feeling pretty good about things...hoping to finally get over all the sickness.

Then the wheezing started. Leah's cough had worsened and she started wheezing on New Year's Eve. I called the Pedi just to make sure there wasn't anything more I could be doing to help her out and they actually insisted I come in. Apparently they take wheezing pretty seriously. We rushed to the doc before they closed and the doctor took a listen to her breathing. Leah's ears looked good and she wasn't running a temp. The doc swabbed her nose just to make sure....

but then she returned with the results and three letters I never wanted to hear...

R.S.V.

Really???? Seriously??? Ugh! We were so careful last year but apparently our efforts weren't quite good enough this time around. Heaven knows where Leah got it but all of us in that room knew the boys would soon start wheezing also. All I could think is that I'm so grateful this didn't happen last year with the babies' lungs being so underdeveloped. Not that RSV at anytime is ideal. RSV is very contagious and frankly I couldn't believe it was just in that little tiny piece of snot they got from Leah's nose. It really is inevitable that the boys would soon start showing symptoms because no matter how hard we try to incubate a sickness, they share toys, cough and sneeze near one another, wipe their nose then poke someone's eye, etc... Inevitable.

I've since learned that RSV is much nastier than I realized. I knew it was bad but there are long-lasting residual effects from the virus, the sickness can last up to a month, and can turn severe very quickly. Basically, RSV is a REALLY bad respiratory infection that affects the lungs. As a result, kids aren't able to breathe well and often can't get the oxygen they need. They lose their appetites, can't sleep, cough and cough and cough, and sometimes they turn blue from such rapid, shallow breathing. That's when they end up in the hospital from bronchiolitis and pneumonia.

Long story short, it's nasty. The doc had already seen three positive RSV tests that morning so that's why she thought we should check.

Alright so what's the treatment??

Not much. Just let it run the course, no antibiotics, and Albuterol treatments 3x daily to make breathing more comfortable. We have to monitor very closely how they're doing to catch anything right away. Right now, fortunately, everything seems pretty maintained and Leah's wheezing has even improved.

We're on baby lock down for the time being so we haven't been going anywhere. Luckily the weather has been decent so we leave the doors open and the kids can go in and out. That has saved my sanity!



Here's Caleb sporting his bird mask. He's the only one that will remotely tolerate it. The others are quite the wrestlers. Needless to say, we've been watching a LOT of Baby Einstein just to get them to sit still.


Our prayers go out to other little people in our family diagnosed with RSV. It certainly is getting around and we hope to be rid of it sooner than later!