Memorial Day

As I said in my last post our doctor visits continued, and unfortunately we ended up visiting the ER doctors at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin. :-( Throughout the weekend Jack started to feel better, as the antibiotics for his ear infections kicked in. I so wish I could say the same for Sam. He ended up getting the cough that Jack had, and eventually started wincing at the end of it and wheezing. THANK GOODNESS my parents were down!!!! Late Sunday afternoon my mom, who is a nurse, made the suggestion that we get Sam in to see the doctor. I called Dr. Kessen's office, and the doctor on-call suggested that we take him in given his symptoms. We attempted to get him into an urgent care, but of course none were open with it being a holiday weekend. Our only choice was to take him to the ER.

We got to the ER at 7:30 pm, saw the triage nurse around 10:00 pm, at midnight we were finally given a quarantined room in the ER. The doctors suggested that we give Sam a breathing treatment. We tried three breathing treatments, and some oral steroids which resulted in very little improvement. Tom and I took turns holding Sam, while the other slept. I have to be honest, I was worried about my little guy, but knew we would find a solution, being at the #3 rated Children's Hospital in the nation. The doctors decided it would be best if he was admitted, so at 3:00 am I was outside of the hospital trying to get in touch with the insurance company, to make sure that the stay would be covered. Wouldn't you know it...the insurance company was closed. We took a leap of faith and agreed to have him admitted, knowing that the ER was covered, thus assuming the hospital stay would be also. A parade of doctors were in and out of our room between 3:00 & 6:00, when we were FINALLY taken upstairs to a room.

The nurses were so caring. A deep suction had been ordered for Sam. That was not the most pleasant thing I've had to watch, but IT WORKED!!!!!! His breathing started to improve! After careful observation I sent Tom home so he could get some rest, and check on Meema, Papa and Jack. Sam continued to improve, and was FINALLY resting comfortably. I couldn't put him the hospital crib...it just gave me the willies. I held him and drifted in and out of sleep myself. At 10:00 am the doctors made their rounds and were very happy with the improvement he had made. They decided that they weren't doing anything there that we couldn't be doing at home, so we were released! At noon we were on our way out and headed towards home!

Not quite the Memorial Day we had planned on, but we were so thankful our little pork chop was on the road to recovery. Although we were at the hospital, we did take time to think about all of the veterans who sacrificed so much for our freedom, and give special thanks to our cousins, Chad, Joy and Robert, who are all active members of the military. Our deepest thank you for your willingness to fight for our freedom and safety!


I hope I NEVER have to take a picture at this venue again!!!!!


The rest of our week was pretty low-key. Jack and I found many quiet activities to do, while Sam rested.


Mr. Fix-It at his best!


Jack informed me that this was his helmet that he must wear while riding his truck. Umm...okay?!?!

We saw Dr. Kessen on Thursday, and she confirmed that Sam was still moving in the right direction, and hopefully everything would be cleared up by the end of the weekend. Music to my ears!!!! (I am happy to announce that he did stay on the road to recovery!)