a Christmas story

We had a bit of a different kind of Christmas thanks to a nasty little virus called RSV, aka Really Scary Virus. It's basically just a cold virus in older children and adults, but in babies especially under one year old, it can be extremely dangerous. I can't believe we made it through Georgia's first year without any complications from it, but unfortunately, Ryland was not so lucky. We're fairly certain Georgia brought it home with her from daycare, where she goes twice a week (Ryland won't start going for a few months yet).

On Monday, December 17, Georgia went to the doctor with a high fever and was diagnosed with a double ear infection and laryngitis. When she continued to have a high temp and lethargy after several days of antibiotics, we made an appointment to take her back in - and sent Ryland, too, since he was starting to run a fever and had been throwing up his bottles for a couple days (super unlike him since he has never spit up much at all). They said Georgia's ears were looking better and checked Ryland for RSV - which he had, and they assumed Georgia did as well. They sent us home and said to up his breathing treatments and start giving them to her; he'd been on them for over a month with bronchiolitis and wheezing that wouldn't go completely away. This was on Thursday, Dec. 20.

Unfortunately, while Georgia started to get better, Ryland started going downhill. We expected that, since they'd told us his "peak" day was yet to come, but when he started seeming a bit better on Friday afternoon, I stopped worrying so badly. But he was so listless and unable to keep anything down on Saturday that I started to get concerned again - and when Nathan expressed worry, I knew something wasn't right. I called into our doctor's office nurse call line for reassurance...but I didn't get it. With all of his symptoms (age, jagged deep breathing, stomach sucking under lungs with breaths, seeing his ribs with breaths, lethargy, dehydration concern) they recommended we take him into the Pediatric ER - just to check his oxygen and dehydration, if nothing else.

I'd been terrified at the thought of having to take him to the hospital, but going was actually not as bad as being there. The most terrifying thing was touching anything in the busy, busy Pediatric ER on the Saturday before Christmas.

They took him into Triage fairly quickly (because of his age and our concerns about breathing, I believe) and from there he was sent straight back to a bed. After watching his scarily-low oxygen levels for awhile, they told us they were going to admit him due to his RSV complications and bronchiolitis. I knew in the pit of my stomach that this meant at least two nights, but I didn't really think we'd be there over Christmas. Unfortunately, we were - we went home on December 26, after 4 nights. But as you can see from his sick little eyes, in these pictures, we needed to be there.

They decided to put in an IV and keep him on oxygen, the level of which was up and down constantly, but took longer than expected to get him off. He was just a slow recoverer. On Christmas Day, he started doing better and they took him off oxygen. Their rule was 24 hours without oxygen, or at least long enough to monitor during a long deep sleep, when his levels would be at their lowest. So that's how we spent Christmas night - me on the hospital bed couch, hardly able to sleep because I kept peeking at his pulse-ox monitor to make sure it stayed at 90 or above. And it did, mostly.

The day after Christmas, we really started to see our boy return to himself as he started rolling around in his crib and tangling his cords, grinning and chewing on everything. They released us by midday; we went and picked up Georgia and headed home to pretend it was Christmas Eve. After spending lots of time shuttling between grandparents, Georgia was SO excited to be home with all of us, and especially to see "Ry Ry."

"Christmas Eve" and "Day" were nice (on the 26th and 27th), just not quite what we had in mind. The kids didn't know any different, of course, and we enjoyed ourselves, but it just really wasn't "Christmas" to me. It was okay, though. I was so thankful to have Ryland home and so exhausted and so thankful for the general health of my babies, it was a total blur. I honestly think I'm still in a fog from the holidays because it feels like there was all this buildup for a celebration that didn't really happen.

I will say that watching Georgia open her gifts was such a delight! She's super into baby dolls right now, and I gave her an American Girl "Bitty Baby" that we named Alice. She loves her and carries her everywhere, feeding her and burping her. Totally worth it. I was so stinking excited for her to have her first American Girl Doll - I have Samantha and Kirsten waiting for her in a trunk when she's old enough!

Santa came a day late for us, which was awfully kind of him, considering our circumstances. Ryland got new pacifiers and some teething toys, and Georgia got a President Barbie and play jewelry and a drawing desk. Both of them got lots of plastic balls, which are a favorite toy in this house.

All in all, not the best Christmas of all time - but in the end, we got to take our little boy home and everyone's on the mend now, which is all that matters. But I'll be honest - I'm ready to pack up the decorations and move on into 2013! It was truly a holiday reminder to be thankful for the important things.