Our Trip to Colorado was….

Cancelled!

What a total bummer that was. Here is a little recap for those of you who have no clue what has been going on in the burgess household. Long story so beware. Back track with me a bit to my last post. You remember the one where Owen had croup and the doctor said Autumn would most likely get it, yes that one. Ok. Well my pediatrician was in fact correct.

Here comes the long story. Tuesday morning. Woke up, both kids doing good. Owen got to go to school and Autumn and I were off to run some last minute errands for our trip to Colorado. For those who did not already know, we were planning to go to Colorado to visit family, celebrate Brandon’s 30th Birthday (which we had planned a surprise Birthday party for) and most importantly to meet our newest little niece Bailey. Anyway, my point was Tuesday morning was going great. Picked Owen back up from school and headed home to get the kids down for naps and I was off to pack.

By time naps were over I was so proud of myself because I had managed to pack for all 4 of us. I got the kids up and Autumn was on fire and coughing like a seal. Ugh. At that point I knew it was not going to be good. I called my sister-in-law and we both agreed that it was probably not a good idea to have my two sick kids around her new 3 week old baby. After talking with her Brandon and I decided it would be best to cancel our trip. Not only would we not have been able to meet our niece it would have been miserable traveling with a sick kid. At that point I had to come clean to Brandon and tell him all about the big 30th Surprise Birthday Party we have been planning for the past two months. Total Bummer. But we had to do what was best for the family. So needless to say we spent Tuesday night Un-Packing the bags I had packed earlier that day and calling a list of people to tell them there would be no party anymore.

A bit depressing I have to admit. Lol. After unpacking Brandon and I went downstairs to watch a movie and try and relax. Autumn was up on and off all night coughing, crying, running a fever, and the list goes on. It was a rough night and no one except Owen got any sleep.

Here is Autumn being passed back and forth between Brandon and I during the movie we were trying to watch. Poor kid could not breath because she was so congested and she kept having these huge coughing attacks.

So Wednesday Autumn continued to go downhill big time.

She kept having more and more coughing attacks that were causing her to throw up because she was choking and gagging. By about 2pm, I started to notice she was breathing a bit strange. I tried a nebulizer treatment and it didn’t seem to do much so I decided to call the pediatrician. He recommended we bring her in. So I dropped Owen off to my Mom and Brandon got off work early to meet me at the doctors office. Then all the fun started.

They checked her oxygen and it was only at 82 which is very low. The doctor examined her and found she had a touch of the croup that Owen had, RSV (Respiratory Syncytial Virus) and a Double Ear infection to top it off. Poor kid I know. I can not even imagine how much pain and discomfort she was in. They brought in a big oxygen tank and started her on this breathing treatment of oxygen mixed with albuterol and some other medicine I cant remember.

 

That was a nightmare because by this point Autumn was losing it big time. She cried, kicked and screamed until she was purple through the entire 20 min treatment. I also cried with her. I was super sleep deprived and it was so hard to watch her go through it. After that the doctor came in and gave her a steroid shot to help with the wheezing from the croup. Then they tested her oxygen again and it was back up to 90. Still not great but much better than 82. He let us go home but said we needed to give her Nebulizer treatments every 2 hours through the night and to bring her back in at 9 the next morning to recheck her oxygen levels. He said if she was 90 or below that they would have to admit her to the hospital. Well, as you can guess I did not get a wink of sleep that night. Between breathing treatments every 2 hours and watching her every breath I was a nervous and emotional wreck.

Thursday morning, we got Owen off to school and then headed to take Autumn back in to test her oxygen levels. By this point she was terrified of being in the doctors office.

Every time someone walked into the room she would cling onto her Daddy and start sobbing. They tested her and her oxygen was at 92. Still not great but much better than the day before. My doctor decided it would probably be too traumatizing to make her go through the hospital stuff so he decided to let us take her home under the promise that we would continue to keep up the breathing treatments, steamy vapor baths, Tylenol, lots of fluids and monitor her breathing regularly.

 

It was a whirlwind of a week but I am so thankful to report that Autumn is on the mend. She still doesn’t have much of a voice, a few coughing attacks each day and still pretty clingy but she is breathing good and finally sleeping and eating again. Praise God!!! I did forget to mention that this whole time Autumn was sick so were Brandon and I which made things that much harder. O yeah, and we had no food what so ever in our house since we had planned to be gone this weekend. Ugh. It has been rough. Very rough. But just like the saying goes, God will not give us more than we are capable of handling, and boy was that the truth. We are so blessed to have so many family and friends that were praying for us and just as God has promised, he gave us the strength to make it through.

So here we are Saturday and we are ALL on the mend to recovery from a very very very nasty virus that got the best of us. And I think we are all even caught back up on all the sleep we had lost out on. Almost felt like we were parents of a newborn all over again! Thanks to you all for all the prayers and to my awesome parents for bringing us over some spaghetti! Love you all so much. As for Colorado, we are planning to go the first weekend in March now Health permitting. Keep your fingers crossed because we are all dying to meet our sweet little nice Bailey.