Summer Vacation = Hospitalization

Gosh, I just don't know how to even begin this post. It certainly isn't going to be anything like it should be right now. Yesterday was the last day of school. It was a very busy day, and a bit emotional, too. One thing that made it extremely busy was that we were packing and getting ready for our Family Camp weekend that we had been counting down to for months. In trying to get ready for our weekend, go to the store and buy our snacks for our trip, still take care of Grandma like I normally do, and also enjoy taking the kids to school on their last day, I had to make an extra trip up to the school yesterday because Ethan was having some asthma problems and needed a breathing treatment at school. He woke up yesterday morning and his asthma was acting up. I had given him a couple treatments before school and also the one during school. By yesterday evening, his oxygen sats were starting drop into the lower 90's. It was obvious that the breathing treatments alone weren't going to do the trick on this one and so I gave him 15ml of oral steroids and continued with his breathing treatments through the night about every three hours. Ethan was still acting okay, except for a cough, and we were just trying to catch this one before it got as bad as the last one did. He wasn't retracting and wasn't panting. Rob and I had discussed it and decided that as long as his sats were holding in the 90's and he wasn't having breathing difficulties, then we would still head out to Camp, and would just head home early if necessary or go to the nearest hospital if Ethan got worse. Well, when we got up this morning and I took Ethan's sats, my heart just sank to the floor!!!!! His oxygen level was only at 84!!!!! It was obvious that we weren't going anywhere. The hardest part was knowing that I now had to break the news to my kids. Ethan already knew it because he knew that he was sick. Emily woke up and came stumbling into my bedroom expecting us to quickly get ready and hit the road since we had packed the car the night before. Now I had the hard job of sitting her down and telling her that this trip that we have planned for months, and just packed the car for the night before, is now not going to happen. She cried like I have never heard her cry before. It was the most heartbreaking thing I have ever heard. It tore my heart out!!!!!!! I literally sat on the floor and cried with her. She looked at Ethan like he was a piece of trash. And Ethan was crying just as hard, but not because of missing camp. He was crying because of the pain that Emily was feeling about missing camp. Ethan felt so guilty. When I saw Emily blaming her brother that I when I had to intervene. I told her that it is okay to be sad about not getting to go, but it is not Ethan's fault. It could have just as easily been her that was sick or in the hospital, or even me or Daddy. She ended up getting over the initial disappointment and accepted it. A little while later she told me, "Then I guess I practiced for the talent show for nothing." That made me sad all over again simply for the fact that we do look forward to and plan for this trip all year long. Emily's day was made a little brighter when Aunt Vicki called and invited her to go to the movies with Kaitlyn, Avery, and Sophia. They saw the new Night at the Museum movie and had a great time. Of course, now I have to deal with Ethan's disappointment about that one because Ethan has been waiting and waiting for that one to come out so we can see it and Emily saw it while he was stuck in the hospital. Sometimes things happen and we can't help it. I don't know why Ethan suddenly got so sick and why it had to happen right now, but it did. And it was a good thing that we stayed, too, because the x-ray showed that the lower lobe of Ethan's lungs had started to collapse due to the asthma.

Ethan is doing better this evening. He has been doing pretty well at maintaining his oxygen in the low 90's. We are hoping that he will be released in the morning. If he gets released early enough, we might try to go ahead and head up to Camp to salvage what is left of the weekend. We talked it over with the doctor already. As long as Ethan can hold his sats at 92 or better on room air, then we should be fine since I had already started him on the steroids early enough and they are in his system. We are continuing the daily dose of the steroids for 5 days.

With all of this going on, it really didn't allow me much time to get overly emotional about the last day of school. I did almost tear up as we were walking out, though. That was tough knowing that that was the last day that our kids will have each other to lean on since we are separating them next year. And of course it was hard leaving the best teacher in the world! :)

So now it is officially summer vacation. I am hoping that this hospitalization is the only bump we have in the road this summer! We do have a few fun things planned for the summer and we are looking forward to them. It is just a shame that we had to start out with such a huge disappointment!