Isaac is Sick

Isaac has been quite sick the last few days. On Thursday afternoon, he took a really long nap in my arms, and I could tell he had a high fever when he woke up. Sure enough, it was over 103 degrees. He's had a cough and a runny nose since Wednesday, but by Friday morning he was wheezing terribly. You could hear him breathing from 10 feet away. He still had fever as well, so I took him in to the doctor on Friday afternoon.

Isaac already had RSV (a common respiratory virus, that can be potentially dangerous to infants) in October. With that, he had the same sort of wheezing, but he only had a low-grade fever. You shouldn't be able to get RSV again within the same season (kinda like the flu--you build an immunity to that strain), so we don't know exactly what this is.

At the doctor's office, he took two albuterol breathing treatments, then one pulmicort treatment (an inhaled steroid). He was still wheezing after that, but there was some improvement. Evidently his right lung is much worse than his left. We've been doing 4 albuterol treatments and 2 pulmicort treatments each day since then, plus lots of acetaminophin to keep the fever down as needed. Isaac has had periods of listlessness where he gets incredibly drowsy and irritable. He has coughing fits and doesn't sleep well, even though he's very tired.

Last night he had a decent night's sleep. He woke up this morning with minimal fever (99--his normal temp is in the 97 range like mine), and he's been more active so far. He still gets fussy easily. Normally, when he falls down or Caleb takes a toy from him, he will just get back up or keep doing what he was doing. But lately, it's the end of the world if something like that happens. He is just more on edge than usual.

We are monitoring him closely and are hoping he is on the mend.