Gianna is my 4th child and is the only one that was early, the only one born with a GBS infection, and the only one that has been hospitalized for RSV. Geez, does the scary stuff ever stop? I was just starting to feel good and comfy and like I could ease up on worrying about late-onset GBS infection that can sometimes happen to a baby that had early onset GBS. My poor little daughters lungs just keep getting assaulted.
She had a little one day and then by the afternoon of the next day, she was wheezing so bad that she could barely breath so off the hospital we went. Thank god they have a children's ER here. We finally got a room at about midnight. We roomed with a nice young couple who were still trying to figure out the whole new baby thing. The mom stayed the first night and I guess was having some unexplained pain the next morning and was rushed to the ER. So I was kind of baby sitting for awhile until dad showed up. Then the 2nd night the dad spent the night...AWKWARD!!! So weird. Then they went home but had new roomies by afternoon. OMG...those ppl made me kind of mad. They had been planning a b-day party for their 2 year old when their 3 month got sick. So instead of rescheduling the party, they left their sick baby for like 6 hours one day to go finish planning the party and then left their sick baby for like 10 hours the next day for the party itself. The second day though, the aunt was there for like 6 hours. I know it wasn't my responsibility but I was pretty much baby sitting while they were gone. All I had to do was call the nurse but I couldn't believe they left for SO long. I felt bad for the poor sick little baby. Then the mother told me that she had had a premmie and she was born with some brain stem problem and had passed away after only 3 months. I didn't quite understand how she could leave her sick baby behind. Maybe I shouldn't judge but I really felt bad for the baby. Then on top of all of that, the poor little guy was having all the respiratory problems from the RSV, ya know all the mucus and snot and coughing, and mom would just prop a bottle in his mouth and go back to sleep. I even had to wake her several times to get her to take care of her screaming baby. And he cried a lot. The only time he didn't cry a lot was when his Auntie was there and she held him and loved him the whole time. I was just completely in shock with the mother though.
Then we had a few days by our self and then they made us move...ugh...and not very nice roomies. At least the "not so great" mother was friendly. This new roomie kept pulling the curtain so I couldn't see the TV. She let her 7 month old get into my bags and they even accidentally spilled some cupped fruit all over my bed and didn't even so much as apologize and I got totally stuck cleaning up the mess. And then the boyfriend spent half of the night and well, ppl just should leave some things in their own bedroom at home. Thankfully they were discharged the next night and we had another night all alone. The next night we got another roomie with a daddy. It felt so weird for me to be sleeping in the same room with a man other then my husband. Thankfully, we went home the next day.
Our days were spent during breathing treatments, suctioning, vitals, eating, and snuggling. We had to start doing what I was calling "beating the baby"...lol...Kind of like burping but with a cupped hand and a bit harder. That wasn't doing much to get rid of all of her chest junkies so we had to start doing deep nasal suctioning with a suction catheter...YUCK but that seemed to do the trick. Those hospitals are so dry and the peds floor is so warm, Gianna had all this thick, icky mucus stuck deep down in there. Poor baby. For days we could stay off of the O2 while awake and then as soon as she feel asleep the O2 would be back on. We were stuck at like 30cc of oxygen for days. Not even a bubble of oxygen. I really started to feel like we would never go home. We were actually making plans to be prepared for staying at the hospital next week. One thing that I learned while there though, is that it sure seemed like most of the little ones in there for RSV were born early.
Sorry for such a long post but I really needed to just unload everything. This as been a very tough and scary 10 days. I am hoping and praying that we can stay out of the hospital for awhile now. Gianna isn't even 3 months old yet and has spent over 1/3 of her life in a hospital. Speaking of, since she was born with pneumonia and had to be vented and all that, does it make the odds greater that everytime she gets sick it will go straight to her lungs and make it worse then it should be? I ask because this whole with RSV they all said that the right was worse then left and it was the right that was the most affected when she had the pneumonia. Is coincidence or correlation do you think?
Thank you for listening to me and again so sorry for the lengthy post.
Christina