Off to the ER

Tuesday was a big day for Asher. Early in the morning he had a follow-up appointment from his stay in the NICU at the Special Care Clinic (located inside WakeMed). Several doctors and physical therapists checked his growth and development. He passed everything with flying colors (and lots of smiles).

Then we traveled down the road to Chapel Hill for an appointment with the hand surgeon. Dr. Megan Patterson took a good look at both of Asher’s hands to determine his best option for surgery. This appointment was a bit abbreviated since Asher SCREAMED the whole time.

His right hand is very functional, but the thumb seemed a little weak. He got fitted for a special splint that will help it get stronger. As they put it on he took a good look at it for a minute and then of course put it right in his mouth! His left hand is more complicated and Dr. Patterson thinks that his arm may be underdeveloped as well. He has some weakness in his wrist that causes it to turn in a little. For now we will wait for him to continue to grow and go back in May for another evaluation. We will do more research about the possibility of doing the hand surgery called “Pollicization,” which involves moving his index finger and making it a thumb.

It was a rather long day and Asher cried a good bit. We thought he was just tired since we kept interrupting his naps to see the doctors. Come to find out it was a bit more than that. He finally got a good long nap in the afternoon and seemed pretty normal for a bit. He even ate a good bowl of rice cereal.

After dinner he got another breathing treatment (we’ve been doing a few a day since he had RSV) and fell asleep. Marty hung back with the boys as I went to a MOPS Dessert. Asher continued to sleep, but when he woke up his breathing sounded horrible, kinda like Darth Vader…Luke just happens to be his middle name! So we tried another breathing treatment and suctioned the junk out his nose, but alas he still sounded horrible. We also found that he was having retractions again, meaning he was sucking in hard to breathe.

Finally around 11 pm we made the decision to head to the ER. We arrived close to midnight and they checked his O2 levels. Still around 100%, but he had coughed the whole ride over so I was still VERY concerned. After waiting a good bit longer than expected we finally got to see someone. Asher got a dose of steroids and 6, yes, 6 breathing treatments before he started to sound better. Doc said he sounded like RSV again and we needed to get a chest x-ray. After more hours of waiting Asher’s O2 levels started to decrease and he was put on oxygen.

Since he needed to be on oxygen he had to be admitted to the hospital for observation. We spent the rest of the night and most of Wednesday morning in the ER waiting for a bed to open up on the floor.

Here we are again at WakeMed waiting for the mucus to clear up and for Asher to be able to breathe without the extra O2. He’s had a great morning and has been off the O2 since 8 am. We’re hoping to go home later this afternoon.

The final diagnosis is that he has something similar to Asthma called Reactive Airway Disease along with some residual RSV. Basically it just means that he has coughing and wheezing which has caused problems with breathing. He is too young for them to say for sure that it is Asthma. We would appreciate your continued prayers for Asher and for our family.

Please pray for:
-Asher to heal quickly and FULLY recover from RAD.

-All the doctors treating Asher, both here at the hospital and his pediatrician, to have wisdom in caring for him and restoring him to health.

-Us to be able to go home this afternoon (Thursday 2/24).

-The Lord to revive and refresh us as we are physically and emotionally exhausted.