Just like that

On Wednesday afternoon, we noticed that Colin had a little sniffle, like the start of a cold. By midnight, his breathing was so noisy and labored that he sounded like he was purring with every breath. 

John had been up with him for a couple of hours before I woke up enough to realize Colin had been crying for a while (John sleeps with Colin in a different room than Veronica and I). So after I finished feeding Veronica at 2:30 I went in and offered to take over. I managed to get him to settle down a little by running a steaming hot shower and sitting with him in the bathroom for half an hour. From there he dozed for a couple of hours before waking up and crying again.

Our pediatrician’s office has sick hours every morning, so John bundled Colin up (it was the coldest day of the year, mind you) and took him over as they opened. Two plus hours later, they were back with the verdict: 

Colin has bronchiolitis, again. (He had it when he was still in the hospital, before he was off the oxygen.) 

Ironically, it was the morning he and Veronica were supposed to get their next Synagis shot (which protects them against RSV — respiratory syncytial virus, which is a very common virus that leads to mild, cold-like symptoms in adults and older healthy children, but can be more serious in high-risk babies like Colin) and the bronchiolitis could very well have been caused by the RSV virus. Like in so much of life, timing is everything. 

So far, Colin is doing well enough that we’re able to give him treatments at home. He gets Albuterol — a bronchiodilator — every four to six hours with a nebulizer. The treatments help him a lot, for about an hour or hour and a half. Right now, however, the remaining two and a half hours are pretty tough. 

I don’t think either John or I got more than about two consecutive hours of sleep last night. We kept trading off with Colin, who pretty much cried all night long. Ethan slept through the entire night, but Colin woke Veronica up several times, which meant we had two unhappy babies. 

We should find out this afternoon if Colin does have RSV, and what that may mean in terms of treatment if he does. I’m just keeping my fingers crossed that Veronica doesn’t catch whatever this is and that she stays healthy.