Pneumonia

So I still haven't been doing very well at this whole blogging thing. But I guess at least I'm consistent. But the last week or so has been pretty hectic, so at least I have an excuse. Landon had pneumonia and an ear infection. I think last Monday was my scariest experience as a mom so far.

His teacher called me as I was on my way to get him and said he wasn't acting like himself. He was fussy and didn't want to be put down, and was grunting a lot. She thought maybe he was constipated. I told her I was on my way and that maybe I'd have Justin take him to the doctor the following day if he wasn't feeling better.

When I got there, I was shocked at how pitiful he looked and sounded. Ms. Kim was rocking him, and he was crying this strange cry that I'd never heard before, and was grunting with every breath. It was terrifying. I got him to the car and immediately called the doctor to see if they could work him in. The receptionist could hear him in the background and said to just bring him in. They'd work him in because he needed to be seen. So we went straight there.

When we got there, the woman who had answered the phone rushed the front desk ladies to get him back as soon as possible. I've never gotten in so quickly there, neither with him or in the 18 years that I went there as a kid. Once we got to the room, the pediatrician came in almost immediately. Another first. She listened to his chest, they got his blood ox and blood pressure, and looked in his ears and throat. His ear infection from 2 weeks ago was definitely still there, even though he had shown zero symptoms that it hadn't cleared up. The doctor had a concerned, confused look on her face. Not an expression you want to see on your child's doctor. She told me to nurse him and that she'd come back in. He ate fine and fell asleep, and she listened to him some more. She said she couldn't find any reason for his grunting, but to take him to the hospital for x-rays right away. She ordered them STAT, so that she could get the results right away and call us. On our way out, another older doctor listened to him and couldn't hear anything either.

So off we went to the hospital. I picked my mom up on the way so I wouldn't have to go alone. Justin was working, so he left as soon as he could to meet us there. The x-rays were awful. I had to hold him down over and over again until they got the right pictures. All the while, he was screaming his little head off and just wanted his mommy to hold him. It broke my heart. We finally ended up having to do a live x-ray, where the radiologist comes in and looks at the screen rather than just taking pictures. Luckily, Justin had arrived by this point, so he took over the torturing the baby duties. As we were walking out, the doctor called with the results. The chest x-ray showed developing pneumonia. She said she had never seen it present this way- no coughing, no wheezing, just grunting. She sent us home with an antibiotic and said to take him to the ER if anything worsened overnight. She wanted to see us back in the morning. If the pneumonia progressed, he would have to be hospitalized.

We got home and the poor thing passed out. We kept an eye on him, but he actually ended up sleeping through the night. And the next morning, he was back to his chipper, happy self. Apparently the first dose of antibiotics did the trick. We took him back in, and he was flirting with all the nurses and being his usual ham-y self. The doctor told us that she'd had trouble sleeping because she was worried about him. The nurse said they were all talking about the "cute baby from yesterday" and hoping that he was doing better.

So in the end, everything was fine, but what an ordeal that night was. I hope we don't ever have to go through that again. Unfortunately, though, despite having been on the antibiotic for over a week now, he's still tugging at his ears like crazy. So I'm assuming that stubborn infection isn't gone yet. We take him back Friday to see if it's gone by then. If not, I don't know what the next step is.