Saturday night I came home from work and Colby told me that Devon (who had been fighting a cold for a few days) was wheezing. I listened to him with my stethoscope and sure enough, what used to be upper airway congestion was now in his lungs. Even though I take care of kids who are sick and have breathing difficulty (as I had done all day), I called one of my best friends to confirm that I should in fact take him to CMH urgent care. You see us nurses have this inability to accurately and unbiasedly assess our own children. We have this fear that maybe we are over reacting and if we bring a non sick child to the ER/Urgent Care that we are jeopardizing our RN credibility. Of course this is silly, but true. Anyway Ashley who has a little girl with frequent breathing issues urged us to go. We got to CMH South at 9:20 and waited until our hair turned Grey. When the Dr finally came to see us at almost Midnight, she listened to Devon's chest and then said "Oh...he IS wheezing". Ugh...Yes, that is why we brought him here and it didn't just start, so I wonder what she had been told. We were rapidly given an Albuterol treatment (which Devon HATED) and had a chest x-ray. We were told that his x-ray "wasn't THAT bad" and given another treatment, shown how to use the inhaler/spacer and sent home. Only problem...he is still wheezing. If he were my patient at work, I would call the RT and have them give him another treatment. If only I had the same bag of tricks at home as I do at work. Devon is happy as seen in the photo, but he feels like crap. I am going to take him to our PCP tomorrow and figure out what to do next...unless he get worse overnight then it's back to ER .
Sunday, August 2, 2009
My little Wheezer
Saturday night I came home from work and Colby told me that Devon (who had been fighting a cold for a few days) was wheezing. I listened to him with my stethoscope and sure enough, what used to be upper airway congestion was now in his lungs. Even though I take care of kids who are sick and have breathing difficulty (as I had done all day), I called one of my best friends to confirm that I should in fact take him to CMH urgent care. You see us nurses have this inability to accurately and unbiasedly assess our own children. We have this fear that maybe we are over reacting and if we bring a non sick child to the ER/Urgent Care that we are jeopardizing our RN credibility. Of course this is silly, but true. Anyway Ashley who has a little girl with frequent breathing issues urged us to go. We got to CMH South at 9:20 and waited until our hair turned Grey. When the Dr finally came to see us at almost Midnight, she listened to Devon's chest and then said "Oh...he IS wheezing". Ugh...Yes, that is why we brought him here and it didn't just start, so I wonder what she had been told. We were rapidly given an Albuterol treatment (which Devon HATED) and had a chest x-ray. We were told that his x-ray "wasn't THAT bad" and given another treatment, shown how to use the inhaler/spacer and sent home. Only problem...he is still wheezing. If he were my patient at work, I would call the RT and have them give him another treatment. If only I had the same bag of tricks at home as I do at work. Devon is happy as seen in the photo, but he feels like crap. I am going to take him to our PCP tomorrow and figure out what to do next...unless he get worse overnight then it's back to ER .
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3 comments:
Oh, poor little guy, and still smiling too! I've had to do all that with Ian a few times. Now I keep an inhaler around for when he gets a cold.
Geez... Poor thing. Zach had pneumonia a few years ago - had that same inhaler and spacer. He got better in a few days. But did feel like crud. Hugs to you. By the way, I'm not a RN and I always feel like I'll lose my rational mom credibility if we go to the dr. unnecessarily. Looks like we're headed to the surgeon (Dr. Schropp @ KU and CMH) on Wed.
I feel for you. Hang in there and follow your mommy instinct!
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