"Just" a Stay at Home Mom

About a year ago I made the final decision to be a stay at home mom.  There were a lot of people who didn't agree with my decision and were quite vocal about it.  I spent a lot of my time trying to explain why I felt it was so important, but I really couldn't put it into words.  I just knew it was what I wanted to do.

I absolutely love being a stay at home mom.  I've heard many people say that the transition for them was hard, but for me, it honestly wasn't.  I'm not perfect at it, but I really do love it.  Even still, there has been the occasional time that I wondered what our life would be like if I had kept working.

Until the other week when we found out that Joey had pneumonia.  As I said in my previous blog post, we took him to an urgent care because our regular pediatricians office couldn't get him in that day.  As we were sitting in the waiting room, a young man who was sick came in with his mom.  His mom was on the phone the entire time trying to find someone that could watch him for the rest of the day because she had to return to work.

We spent about three hours in urgent care.  The PA kept apologizing for keeping us there for so long.  I assured her that I really had nothing else more important to do, and that my focus was on helping Joey.

When we got home, Joey was exhausted.  I laid him down for a nap, and he woke up about 10 minutes later because of a coughing fit and a stuffy nose.  I finally got him calmed down and he fell back to sleep on my chest.  As I laid on the couch with him sleeping on my chest, I felt so grateful that I got to be the one calming, comforting, and taking care of my child. I felt so strongly that I was definitely doing what was right for our family.  I felt so strongly that every sacrifice we have to make will be 100% worth it.  I felt so grateful that we had been blessed with such an incredible blessing.  I felt so grateful that my husband is willing to go to work everyday so that I can stay home, and that he has such a wonderful job that allows us to still be secure financially.

I know it's not right or possible for everyone, but it's right for me, and I'm so grateful we decided that I would be "just" a stay at home mom.

Crackling in the lungs

Almost two weeks ago, Joey started coughing at night.  No fever, no runny nose, just a nasty cough.  It was pretty loose, so we weren't to worried about it.  A few days later, it was pretty much gone so we definitely weren't worried.  On Tuesday, his cough came back in fits, and it sounded MUCH "tighter" than his original cough.  It started sounding very "asthma-y" so it made me worry.

One of the nights he was coughing, I called the nurse line at our pediatrician's office.  Among other things, the nurse I talked to said that if his was breathing more than 40 breaths for minute he needed to see a doctor.

After Neal left for work on Thursday, I started listening to Joey and realized that he was breathing really fast and wheezing.  When I counted the number of breaths he was taking, I realized he was taking 60 breaths a minute!  That was WAY too fast.  So I bundled him up, got him in the car, and we headed to urgent care.

We ended up being there for about three hours.  They tested him for RSV and it came back negative (thankfully).  They gave him an albuterol treatment through a nebulizer which helped his breathing a LOT.  Then the PA (who was wonderful by the way) listened to his lungs, and since he wasn't wheezing she could hear "crackling" in his right lung.

Because there was a radiology clinic in the same medical complex as the urgent care we went to, the PA sent us over to get an x-ray of his lungs done.  It was SO sad to watch him :-( there was a little plastic tube they had to put the top half of his body in to keep him still so they could get a good picture.  It tore my heart out to see him look at me with eyes that said "Mom, I don't feel good and you're torturing me." It was definitely a lesson in having to watch your child go through something that's painful short-term for their own good long-term.

After the x-ray we headed back over to the urgent care and waited for the radiologist to look at the x-ray.  I fed Joey and then put him to sleep (it was like 11 am and he had slept for 10 minutes since he woke up at 6:15 am that morning).  This is where I learned how awesome the PA was - once Joey fell asleep, she turned off the lights, brought me water, and brought me a pillow to put under my arm so it didn't get tired holding Joey.

About 45 minutes later the radiologist called the PA and told her that he couldn't diagnose pneumonia based on the x-ray.  After talking to the PA for a couple minutes though, she told me that because of what she could hear in this lung, she wanted to go a head and treat him for pneumonia.  So, they gave him a steroid shot, sent us home with a nebulizer, albuterol, and amoxicillan.

Fast forward four days of antibiotics, albuterol every four hours, lots of naps on mom, staying inside,  and a follow-up doctor appointment, he's doing better.  The pediatrican today said that she could still hear some wheezing and some crackling, so we're still keeping a close eye on him, but we get to only do nebulizer treatments as needed instead of every four hours.  His energy seems to be coming back, which makes things interesting because we have to keep him calmed down so he doesn't get wheezy.

So, we are staying home (other than necessary outings) for the next couple days so that he doesn't pick up anything else to make things even worse.  Mostly, we're just grateful that he didn't end up in the hospital and that we were able to take care of him at home!