cold season

My husband, older son, and I have all been sick with bad colds. My husband's mom had been diagnosed with viral bronchitis. Since I'm breastfeeding my seven week old son, I thought he wouldn't get it as bad as we all did, if at all. 

But I was very, very wrong.

On Thursday night, Archer was spit-uppier than usual, fussy, and coughing/sneezing. By Friday mid-day (when we were an hour away from home, of course!), he was REALLY wheezy/raspy, super pale, listless, his oxygen levels were down, and he had spit up with some blood in it (speculation on that, though, is he possibly got some from a cracked nipple, since he only spit up blood the once). We high-tailed it back into town, got him in to see his pediatrician (nothing but accolades for Dr Smith at Sartell Pediatrics!), and was immed

iately referred to admittance to the hospital.

We were lucky that Archer was only in for one night, but he had to have an iv in (for the second time in his life) and a dose of steroids. His bloodtests came back normal and his wheezing cleared up. We were able to go home the next day.

While I was complimented on my down-to-earth and easy-going manner, what all the nurses, PCAs, and doctors don't understand is that inside I was one big ball of freaking out. This is my (preemie) baby we're talking about!

So, long story short - let this be a PSA to be very careful with your new bundles as the cold season swoops around. It's really scary to think what COULD have happened if we hadn't acted as quickly as we did, and it's scary to think that something as mundane as a cold could make it happen.