#Life With Three - April {Could It Get Any Worse?)

I have made myself pretty clear on the blog that this year has been pretty sucky. Like a lot sucky but I try not to moan and groan too much about it if I can but things just keep on happening. So I've got new things to gripe about. Like in February poor J.D broke his arm and last month all the kids got gastro while we were on holidays and well this month topped the lot I think.

Poor J.D has really had a bad run this year with his health. As I said he broke his arm in February, got croup and gastro in March and in April got himself a nice case of bacterial pneumonia which resulted in a very long hospital stay. I keep praying that 2017 would get better but it is just getting worse. I guess this is life with kids.

J.D never seemed to get back on top of things after his bout with gastro at the end of March and just wasn't himself for the early part of April. He kept complaining that he had a stomach ache and had low-level fevers for over a week. I kept thinking he still had a lingering stomach bug considering he would keep pointing to his stomach and saying it hurt. Little did I know that referred stomach pain can be a sign of pneumonia. It all came to a head in mid-April when his temps started rising and I couldn't keep up with them over a number of days. They were reaching 39 degrees if I didn't keep up with panadol and he was keeping us up most of the night crying in pain because of his stomach.

I ended up staying up half the night with him because I was so worried about how ill he was. That night I knew it was something more than a stomach bug and took him to the doctor the next day. Over the next two days, we were put through a rigmorale of blood tests, urine test, nasal and throat swabs, ultrasounds and X-rays before a diagnosis was made. I was standing in the x-ray room and I had a peek at his xray and saw a large white shadowing on his right lung. While I am no doctor I knew this was likely pneumonia and we would just probably had to go back to my GP and get a script for antibiotics. This did surprise me considerably as he wasn't presenting in the manner of someone with pneumonia. He had no cough or cold and I didn't realise he was struggling to breathe. Little did I know that it was going to be more complicated than a simple script.

My kind GP sat me down and explained to me what the x-ray presented. That he had pneumonia but there was a "bubble" like formation on his lung which was possibly some type of abscess caused by a bacteria such as staph!!! Then the bad news came.... she wouldn't be able to give me a script for antibiotics because this was really serious and he needed to present himself to the hospital as he would require IV antibiotics. Me being naive thought we would just get a dose in the hospital and that was the end of that and we'd be home that evening! Yeah well, that wasn't the case.

We presented ourselves to our local public hospital. We didn't have private health for the kids (only I had it for pregnancy related things) and sat down ready for a long wait. By this time it was 3.30pm and the poor kid had been going since 10.30am with doctors and tests but there was still more to come. It was close to 5 pm before we got called in for the doctors to review him. The next few hours entailed a lot of waiting, another round of x-rays, blood tests and two tries to insert a cannula into his arm. The poor kid was so brave but he had enough of being poked and prodded by 7.30pm and all he wanted was his bed. By this time we had been informed that he will definitely be admitted overnight as he would require at least 24 hours of IV antibiotics to get on top of this infection. He cried his little eyes out when I told him we would be staying in the hospital and my heart broke for him.

By this time hubby had driven down to meet us in emergency as me and my mum had been doing all the running around with him most of the day. He lovingly said he would do the night shift with the little boy as my eyes were about falling out of my head. They took him up to the ward by 10pm and settled us into a room with four other kids and their parents. I drove home in a daze and collapsed into bed by midnight after trying to make some sense of our bomb of a house.

This routine continued over the next three days as hubby did the night shift and I did the day shift. Saying a quick hi and bye, kiss and a cuddle and leaving the other at the hospital. J.D had been having constant 3-6 hourly doses of two different antibiotics to try and get on top of this pneumonia. We had a number of x-rays over the days but by day three we were in for bad news. The antibiotics didn't seem to be working and his temp was still spiking and now fluid was starting to form on the lung. We had noticed his cough get worse over the time he was in the hospital and silly me thought maybe it was him getting the muck off his lung. Not the case.

The doctor sat me down and went through what was happening. Fluid was building up on the lung, this can cause serious complications. He may need surgery to drain the fluid and we think you might need to be transferred to Brisbane. My heart dropped.

To be continued next week.......