PICU

Apparently Micaiah thought the NICU was so fun he wanted to try the PICU. Not cool. He had a choking/gagging episode around 5pm after I suctioned him out & he lost all color & started having difficulty breathing. I watched him nervously over the next couple of hours, texting Wesley updates along the way. At 7pm, he was still extremely pale, lethargic, his lip color wasn't good, & he was still breathing with difficulty. I called Wesley & told him I thought we needed to go to the ER. Then, I took Hannah Kate to Nana & Papa drove me to meet Wesley in Ooltewah. (Wesley carpools with a guy from there.) On the way, Micaiah perked up a bit & acted hungry. He hasn't eaten since 2:45p & it was after 7:30p at this point. We stopped in a parking lot to let him nurse & see how he did after that. Wesley was still iffy about it & said it was my call since I'd watched him all day. I handed him to Wesley for a few minutes & Wesley finally started saying he didn't like how much difficulty he was having breathing. We went on to the ER. The doctor came in fairly quickly & checked him out & said they'd start IV fluids, oxygen & probably admit him. Once all of that happened Micaiah became very alert & upset. He was acting hungry (which was a big improvement). The nurses in the ER were great & Wesley knew the respiratory therapist (he grew up in the same area & Wesley was friends with his brother) who was also great. At one point, the doctor came back by & said Micaiah was looking much better (his color had returned) & that we did the right thing by coming in. That made me feel better too. He decided to send him to pediatric intensive care (PICU) because he wasn't comfortable with him being in a room without a nurse for a few hours (oddly enough, the last hour and a half in the ER we were alone with no nurses-Wesley found this ironic). We are now settled in PICU. They've done some ultrasounds just to check things out, a chest x-ray because he had diminished breath sounds on the left side, & are planning to watch for a little while. The resident & attending asked me a million questions & spent about 10-15 minutes with me asking questions & explaining what is going on. I'm impressed. Everyone has said he's super cute & that he does not like losing his paci (because he's starving). Hopefully he will be able to start his feeds again tomorrow (& hopefully go home-although no one has mentioned this).
RSV is serious business when you're a little guy & a preemie. I'm kicking myself for not being more careful. We were careful but not enough evidently. Thanks to our church family for your prayers. I'm staying here with him tonight. Wesley left around 1130p (we got to PICU around 1230). Hopefully Papa is going to come get me around 6a (they close the PICU from 6-8 for shift change) so I can run home & get a vehicle to come back. Nana is going to take care of Hannah Kate tomorrow & Wesley is going to work.