RSV

On Thanksgiving day, Lydia started to come down with a fever. Lydia gets a LOT of fevers. Sadly, she seems to pick up on anything and everything going around. Well, do you want to know what was going around viciously the end of November? RSV.

Lydia’s fever remained day after day. She also had a horrible cough. These things are particularly scary for Lydia (anything respiratory can get dangerous really quickly). She has such low muscle tone that her body just doesn’t have the ability to have productive coughs. I have to lift her up and pat her back firmly to try and help break things up. After four days of this, I brought her in to see her pediatrician. We felt grateful that it wasn’t pneumonia, but she was diagnosed with RSV.

The one nice thing to having all of Lydia’s equipment, was her pediatrician said there really wasn’t anything they could do at a hospital that we didn’t already have the capabilities to do at home (since we have oxygen at home). We are not big fans of hospital stays around here and so we were so grateful for that.

Mark and I didn’t feel comfortable having Lydie sleep alone. So the first two nights Lydie was sick, Mark held her and slept on the couch (so he could keep her elevated and make sure she was breathing properly). Then Mark had to start his nights at work, so Lydie had several sleepovers with me in my bed.

It was a long and stressful time.

And then as soon as we thought the worst was behind for Lydia, Ben came down with it. Ben is an interesting little man when he gets sick. He may have a fever but he runs around just as active as ever. I always have to encourage him over and over to lay down and let his body rest.

But this time was different. Once he started his fever, he was OUT. It was almost a little alarming because that is not how he usually acts (even when he’s sick!). He was definitely not feeling well. Luckily, Ben’s didn’t last as long as Lydia’s and, again, we are so grateful we didn’t have to go to the hospital. However, Ben was still not feeling well when his birthday came along and he was pretty bummed about that. But I assured him we could celebrate with him a different day.

We are grateful it wasn’t worse. We are grateful for our sweet friends who brought us meals and love when our family was needing it. We are surrounded by the best. And grateful to have these two back to their happy, healthy selves!