our morning with dr. arango

yesterday morning, russell was sick -- threw up twice, had the chills and horrible congestion. as the day progressed, so did his cough. at one point i *thought* i heard wheezing while we were laying in bed together. it was so faint and i knew he was having trouble breathing from the congestion that i didn't think much of it. to be safe, i called the doctor's office and spoke to the nurse. she suggested i bring him in the next day due to the various symptoms he was having. later in the day, russell was acting completely normal (aside from the coughing and runny nose) and he slept through the whole night without any trouble. it crossed my mind to maybe just cancel the appointment, but with his birthday being in 2 days, and a trip to the circus planned for sunday, i thought: it's better to be safe than sorry! so we went to see our beloved dr. arango this morning for an 8:15 appointment. seconds into the exam, dr. arango revealed that russell's was in fact wheezing and as it turns out he has a lower respiratory infection. he said i was right to bring him in today because otherwise we could have ended up in the ER. dr. arango said russell's lungs were so tightly closed and his oxygen saturation was very low (90), which concerned him. we were told to stay at the office and received 3 back-to-back albuterol treatments with a nebulizer machine. so, in what i thought would be a short trip to doc's office to rule out my silly notion that russell had something beyond a cold, turned out to be something much more seroius. russell is now on prednisone for the next week, doing albuterol treatments every 4 hours, and also on antibiotics to treat the viral infection he has on top of the respiratory infection. boy am i thankful i stuck to my gut by taking russell to the doctor today!

let me just say that it's hard to believe he is that "sick" by the way he is acting today. and also, may i mention that it would have been nice to have been forewarned by the doc how ridiculously HYPER albuterol would make my kid! just when i thought it couldn't get any worse...HA! it's going to be a lot of fun in the upcoming days. there's a first time for everything...especially for us moms!