My first ever experience with RSV. Did Maty's All Natural Products keep one of my children out of the hospital?!

 Cade, Ezio and Dan all fell sick last week Wednesday with congestion and a cough that night. Funny how kids always seem to become sick just before bed huh?! I wanted to try and give Cade relief so he could get a good nights sleep, as rest is one of the best things for a sick child or even adult. I rubbed a little bit of Maty's All Natural Vapor Rub on my upper chest first to test out the strength of it and make sure I didn't break out from it or anything. I always use new products on myself before I use them on the kids. Everything about it was fine on me, so I rub some of the Maty's Vapor Rub on Cade's chest and the bottoms of his feet. Now I personally never really believed the whole vapor rub on the feet thing, I thought it was crazy as you don't breathe through your feet! Right? Gave it a shot anyways! As it is recommended for children of age two and up I didn't want to try it on Ezio just yet as he is only just over a year old. At this point I did not give Ezio any of the cough syrup even though it is recommended for ages one and up, I didn't feel he needed it just yet. He only had a slight cough and it was a weak cough. The boys went to bed just fine.

When they woke up in the morning they were back to being happy and playing. They still had a cough  and nasal congestion and Ezio was tugging on his right ear a bit. Red flag went up high! Jedilynn had reoccurring ear infections when she was a baby, so I can definitely tell when one of my children have one or one is forming. Yes, when one is forming, I've taken the kids to the doctor "too soon", before the actual infection is visible. Any how, shortly after Jedilynn returned home from school Ezio was getting sleepy and ready for his second nap, around 4:30p.m. When I went to get him from playing in the room with the kids, I noticed he was breathing heavy. So I changed his diaper and took his shirt off so I could watch his chest and throat better to see if it was retracting far, which is a sign that he would be having a hard time breathing... unfortunately I did see this. Again, we just tried to chalk this up as him being too excited while playing with the older two. 

Around 7p.m. I took him upstairs by my mom to see what she thought, if we should take him in to our local Children's Hospital, call the pediatrician or just try and wait it out and call the pediatricians office right away in the morning. She has a stethoscope and is a Certified Medical Assistant so she took a listen to him and heard some wheezing, but he was happy, playing, yelling and having a blast so she suggested that we just call the pediatrician in the morning if he isn't doing better, unless of course he started to turn blue. So after visiting with grandma for a bit we came back down stairs, rubbed some more vapor rub on Cade and laid him down for bed. About 8:30p.m. Ezio started to be a bit more agitated, still breathing heavy, etc. He fell asleep, but wasn't really asleep, he was crabbing and tossing and turning in my arms so I went and sat in the hot steamy bathroom with him for about 30-45mins, it wasn't helping and seemed to make him worse.... now he was turning BLUE around his lips! It's now about 10p.m., Cade and Jedilynn are sleeping and the hubby is feeling under the weather, he got sick the night before when the boys did. For whatever reason my mom was already sleeping... she is never sleeping this early!! So I ran upstairs with Ezio as she didn't answer her phone to see if she could take us in. She was of course willing to and we had a 30-45mins drive ahead of us to our local Children's Hospital of WI. Ezio was able to sleep on the way to the hospital as his car seat kept him elevated, which I'm sure allowed him to breathe easier then when laying down. 

Arrived at the hospital and the registration ladies were very nice, the lady next to the one who was checking us in noticed right away that he was breathing rapidly. They took us in a triage room right away and took his vitals and all of that. No fever, but they were not happy with his oxygen level and the nurse listened to his lungs for about 5 minutes or so. She took us to a room immediately. 

Ezio's first breathing treatment was done, it quieted the wheezing a little bit, but didn't help his breathing. They waited a little bit and did another breathing treatment... not much change. They also gave him a dose of oral prednisone. Which by the way, the prednisone caused him to throw up the apple juice the nurse gave him... all over me and himself. Neither of us had a change of clothes and my mom... even though she is a MA was gagging while I had the puke on me! It was quite comical, Ezio was fine, it is pretty common for that to happen.

NO CHANGE!

All the while we are waiting to see if his breathing, oxygen level and wheezing get any better Ezio is walking around the room, yelling, dancing to the sound of his wheeze!, playing patty cake, waving to everyone that walked past, etc! Like absolutely nothing was wrong with him! They gave Ezio three more breathing treatments with no change.

FIRST NIGHT IN THE HOSPITAL

We were admitted to Children's Hospital shortly after 1a.m. on Thursday! NONE of us have ever been admitted to the hospital and don't even visit the hospital very often! My mom said that she never had to stay at the hospital with my brother or me and I never had to stay with any of the older two, not even when Jedilynn's foot was accidentally burned as a baby! I will admit I was quite scared, thankfully I had my mom with me!

Once we get to our room, the nurses and doctors are baffled by how active and talkative Ezio is. They ask why he is there, because he appears to be perfectly fine and should be home... then they listen to him and pretty much go "OH!". The first doctor to examine him when we got to the room was very energetic, absolutely amazing with Ezio and definitely not what I expected. I was expecting crabby people. There was not a single crabby soul!

What I didn't know was once in the room they were stopping the breathing treatments as they were not working/helping and started suctioning.... not with a little blue bulb nasal aspirator... they use two different types of aspirators. One is a tube with a small white stopper on the end that they use just like a bulb aspirator, but is electric and the other one is a small skinny tube that they feed down the nasal passage and suck out the fluid and mucous from the airways. The first time they did the deep suction I couldn't help but cry, little did I know his screaming was just complaining from being confined, they wrapped his arms in a bed sheet and from the slight discomfort of the tube in his nose. No more then a second after they removed the tube from his nose he immediately stopped screaming! They continued suctioning every two hours our first night. 

Dan was at home with Cade, they were both sick and why bring them into the hospital where they could come down with something worse and we didn't know exactly what Ezio had. At home Dan continued to use the Maty's All Natural Vapor Rub and the Maty's All Natural Cough Syrup at bedtime. Dan would call periodically to check in on Ezio and update me on how Cade and him were doing at home. 

SECOND DAY

In the morning on our second day my mom gets a phone call that her van was towed... sorry mom! My mom left as she had things to do and had to get her van from the tow lot and wanted to return our van to Dan in case he wanted to come visit. This alone time at the hospital was a very nice bonding time for Ezio and I, with no distractions or anything. While I greatly enjoyed our time for just the two of us, I wished we were somewhere else and I was also up there with absolutely nothing except the 40 channel TV and the land line in the room. I brought my phone, but it died over night and so did my mom's, we didn't bring chargers as we pretty much expected to be there for a few hours and be sent back home. 

Later on during our second day at the hospital my aunt and sister came up to visit and my dad came up after work. The day was filled with more nurses and doctors coming in and more suctioning. Later in the day when my moms came back up to visit the doctor there at the time was not impressed with the lack of fluids Ezio was taking in and the lack of wet diapers. Did I mention, you have to put ALL diapers on a scale in the bathroom for them to be able to keep track of the amount of fluid they put out. She wanted to give him IV fluids... no matter where you put the IV on him... it's NOT going to stay in! From their reactions, I think it is safe to assume they do not care for children who are so active very often! My mom and Amy were able to get him to drink and eat more and we barely avoided the IV fluids! I was so happy, but we still had to stay another night. My aunt came back up to the hospital and stayed the night with us. I discovered a "Parent Lounge" with a shower, washer and dryer. Since my aunt was staying the night with us I was able to go shower and wash mine and Ezio's  clothes and Ezio's blanket, which had puke on it from the night before. What a relief that was! I finally fell asleep at about 6:30/7a.m....

THIRD AND LAST DAY!!

About 8 or 9a.m. a pediatrician from our pediatricians office walked in to check out Ezio and gave us the GREEN LIGHT and the magic words, "You get to go home!"!!! WOOHOO! Then the respiratory team came in and played with Ezio, to see if she could get him worked up and excited and if he would start wheezing or having trouble breathing again. He passed the test and she gave us the green light as well along with all the other doctors who came in! SO EXCITING! I called my mom to see if she could come pick us up. Then I just had to wait...she was getting her van out of the tow lot finally. What a relief it was when we were on our way back home! 

A WEEK LATER!
Ezio is doing 100% better, still some congestion. We had a follow up appointment with his pediatrician on Wednesday and I found out that the pediatrician stopped in at Children's the morning after we were admitted, I thought I woke up to everyone that came into the room, but apparently I missed our pediatrician. He said he even tried to wake me... don't remember that! Dr. P said Ezio sounded great at his appointment and he doesn't have to see a respiratory specialist or anything like that. The hospital and Dr. pretty much just chalked this up to being RSV or Bronchiolitis from a virus as it was his first time wheezing. Oh and Ezio did in fact have an ear infection, the hospital started him on antibiotics and by the time we seen our pediatrician, just after four days of being on the antibiotic the ear infection was gone. Of course we still giving the antibiotic through the full course of it though. I wish I had photos of Ezio at the hospital, but mine and my moms phones were dying and I didn't have a camera. I honestly wonder if Cade stayed out of the hospital because daddy was home giving him our wonderful Maty's All Natural Products or if it was just that the boys are 18 months apart. Read our review for Maty's All Natural Products!