Dear Noah.....you are finally over pneumonia.....

What an experience this was! You started off at urgent care on January 21 thinking you might be getting strep throat. They gave you an antibiotic but your cough and fever just got worse no better. By Saturday the 26th I took you to the local ER as I was concerned about possible pneumonia or even infective endocarditis. They also felt the same so you were transferred to Miami Valley for a so-called stat echo which never happened till Monday anyway so I wish they could have just kept you local...but you made that trip by yourself in the ambulance transport, while I went home and took care of a few things to make the trip back down to Miami Valley to spend the night with you as I was pretty sure you would not be coming back home that day. You had 3 IVs going by the time I got back and you had already ordered your own supper and was eating it when I came into your room. They were treating you for sepsis and possible pneumonia/endocarditis and running all sorts of tests. You became an expert at blood draws, needle sticks and IVs before this experience was over with! Your heart rate was also super fast, and while I knew you had a fast heartbeat I totally forgot that your cardiologist had said in the past she felt you had sinus tachycardia, so while fast, it was normal for you, and when you are sick and with a fever your heart rate goes even faster. This would have been helpful to have remembered because the hospitalist was very concerned about the fast heart rate and of course I had not told him about sinus tachycardia, only a fast heart beat all the time in the past.

You were not getting any better and you had a reaction to the vancomycin, redman syndrome, so they had to then treat  you for that and the next time they gave you some they treated you beforehand and slowed down the infusion rate, which is usually what causes that type of a reaction. Poor kid you were really sick, not getting better and still with high fever, now looking like you were sunburned on your face and torso and back, and still with a heart beat of up to 160s.

Your flu tests were negative..but you did finally test positive for Mycoplasma pneumonia so they switched antibiotic treatment specifically for that. Once they did that you started to finally get better! By Monday, they were not going to let you go home again but if they were not going to do anything different, and you were off all your IVs at this point and on oral medicine, and I could monitor you at home, I did not know why we could not be discharged so I really pushed for it. FINALLY got you out of there and back home Monday night before the sleet and ice hit, somewhere around 7:30 or so after we picked up your medicine at the pharmacy.  You still were not great ....took you another week at home to feel better and totally get rid of your cough.  THEN I got it......and I am still fighting the cough a bit though I am much better than I was! I have never coughed so much and brought up so much stuff in my life!

THANKFUL you made it through and did so well.....thankful to God for getting us better and back home safe and sound and keeping us healthy now. I love you and I really missed not having you here at home, even though I pretty much spent all my time down there at the hospital with you.

Here is to the best health going forward for us both!

LOVE YOU  LOTS

Mom
XOXOXOX