Battling RSV. Again.

My youngest boy will be 16 months old next week. When he was just 3 weeks old he was admitted to the hospital with RSV. It was absolutely the most terrifying experience of my life. While I know that RSV is common and many babies get through it just fine, those are not the stories that you hear about. Unfortunately, you always hear about the tragic stories. As you can imagine, those 3 days in the hospital and the weeks following were nerve racking. It took about a month for his lungs to fully clear up.

Last week myself, the twins and the little man all came down with a wicked cold. No fevers but really thick, hoarse coughs and congestion. Saturday morning I decided to bring the baby to the pediatrician just to be safe. I could hear some slight wheezing and with his RSV history, I wanted them to listen to his lungs. Babies who get RSV so young are predisposed to respiratory infections and asthma.

For some reason the thought never crossed my mind that this would be RSV again. However, that is exactly what the doctor said he had. At his age there is much less concern, however all those emotions from that scary time last year came flooding in. Why did my baby have to go through this all again? The positive was that his oxygen levels were 100% which is great. I left with instructions to keep an eye on him and bring him back in 2 days.

I brought him back in to be rechecked. His oxygen is still great at 99% and he really has not changed much. This is good news because its around this time that he would have been worse if it was going to happen. So now its just nurturing him till he gets this nasty thing out of his system. Unfortunately RSV lingers for about 2-3 weeks. This is where breastfeeding really comes in handy for us because when he is sick an clingy, nursing always makes him feel better.

I must say that I hope I never have to deal with those 3 letters again. I hate them.