Same Bat Channel

Tater's in the hospital, AGAIN (sorry to the family who is reading this-it's been a helluva day and we didn't get around to the phone during decent hours). He's had a cough since Saturday so after a bad night last night, I made an appointment with the pediatrician (not his regular one, who was out today, but another one in the same practice) for this afternoon. While we were headed out the door for a neurology appointment this morning he had another "blue" episode when I took him off his oxygen. This one was way worse than any of the others and I was really freaked-he was blue all over. But he pinked back up fairly quickly once I turned the O2 back on so I just took our portable canister with us to the neurologist and he seemed fine.

Tater still seemed fine once we got to the ped's office after lunch. He looked a little tired but I had woken him up from a nap and honestly didn't think anything of it. Even when the nurse seemed a little worried about him I just thought it was because she hadn't seen him before. But then she took out the pulse oximeter to measure his oxygen sats. Whoa nelly. If sats in the low 90's are kinda okay and sats in the mid 80's are bad, then sats in the 70's get you an ambulance ride to the hospital. The doctor very professionally freaked out as soon as he got in the room. He pulled out a breathing treatment, told me to go get Tater's oxygen out of the car and had the nurse call an ambulance. An ambulance to take Tater to the hospital that is less than a mile down the road. I was way more than freaked at this time. Mostly because I was kicking myself for not getting Tater to a doctor sooner. I knew he was getting bad but I kept telling myself to take it easy, it was just a cough. So we got on the ambulance-after the driver told me to go put our oxygen canister in my car so it wouldn't get mixed up with theirs (apparently the situation wasn't THAT urgent). And Tater was acting really normal, clicking his tongue and looking around and absolutely loving the ambulance ride. But at least we got a room right away (last time we had to wait 1.5 hours for one) and we got to hear over the ambulance radio about a guy who drank too much Listerine and passed out drunk then started a fight with the EMT who tried to help him out and had to have the cops called on him. Who knew Huntsville was so exciting?

Now, the down side to a ped freaking out and calling an ambulance is that you go straight to the PICU. The upside to the ped freaking out and being taken to the PICU is Doctor Mama. You may recall Doctor Mama from Tater's last PICU visit. She takes no prisoners and gets things DONE. Within 2 hours of Tater touching hospital ground he had seen a ped cardiologist who diagnosed him with pulmonary hypertension and she has mapped out a plan for helping him/us at home. The plan is: O2 ALL the time, no breaks, and a pulse oximeter at home so we can keep an eye on his sats without having to run to a doctor all the time (ahem-Halo-we're still willing to be the guinea pigs for a ped version of your product).

And as with all Tater visits to the hospital, we're getting a few things done while we're there. His neurologist mentioned at the visit today she wanted to run a couple of tests in the hospital but wanted to wait until RSV season was over. Now we'll be doing those over night tomorrow night and hopefully get to go home on Thursday. This neurologist is the most amazing and compassionate woman. She stopped by to see "Handsome"-her name for the Tater- on her way home tonight even though she had no obligation to. She's always hugging me and telling me how proud she is of all us and does it in a way that is in no way condescending. We are so blessed to have caring doctors who are really concerned about Tater. Even his surgeon and surgeon's nurse heard he was in the hospital and stopped by to check on him. We are definitely in the right place and could not ask for better care for the Tater. Sure, we see more knowledgeable people at Vandy and UAB, but no one cares for him like his Huntsville docs.

One more thing at the risk of going overboard with this post: today when Tater was turning blue, Toser ran upstairs and came back with a sing-it box (music box). He said, “I get sing-it box to make Tater feel better.” When Tater calmed down with Toser playing the box next to his ear, he said, “See Mommy, I make Tater all better.” Isn’t Tater lucky to have such a great big brudder? Aren’t YB and I so lucky to have such a great son?

I’ll try to keep you all updated. We don’t have Internet service at the hospital and I’ll probably be there all day tomorrow. Rest assured that Tater is fine and is in the best hands. So is Toser-he’s with Wissa getting spoiled rotten and being sweet about it.