Remember when your baby got sick for the first time? You were a new parent, your baby cried bloody murder, and you didn’t know what to do. Deep in your stomach there was a gut wrenching stress you never felt before. Hopefully it was just a common cold and nothing serious right?
Wrong. It was serious
and this is where our story begins:
Pediatrician Visit
The twins were just over 2 months old. Both twins were
coughing. It started small then violent,
to the point where their faces turned red.
“It shouldn’t be anything the doc can’t fix”, I thought to myself. At the pediatrician’s office, she examined
the girls. She then stared wide-eyed at
her reports. Her face was blank. She put her hand on her chin, proceeded to
the door and said, “I need to make a call.”
“Great, she doesn’t have a clue what’s going on.” I thought to myself. We continued to wait in the room. I rolled my eyes into the back of my
head.
The pediatrician returned.
“I’m sending you to emergency and they will perform these tests.” Off to emergency.
Emergency Visit
Unless you are dying, then you know emergency doesn’t mean
urgency. We checked in at 14:00. The
girls needed, chest x-rays, blood samples, nose swabs and vitals measured. For the next 9 hours. I saw the twins get probed. Thermometers were inserted into their rectum,
suction tubes stuck down their nose into their throat, and their little feet
pricked to get blood samples.
At 23:00, it was decided we needed to stay overnight.
The Next 5 days
Over the next couple days I felt I was moving into the
hospital, bringing pillows, food, and clothes to the room we stayed in. Although the hospital chair that converted into
a bed felt comfy, I wanted out. The
girls were put into separate hospital cage beds. Monitors were connected to
them to check their heartbeats and oxygen levels. They were also given intravenous fluids and
antibiotics to help them. It wasn’t uncommon
for us to wake up every hour to the sound of alarms because the twins would
stop breathing. It also wasn’t uncommon
for both the twins to stop breathing at the same time. I’m not sure how many times I ripped the cord
out of the wall to signal the nurses of emergency. It was too many to count.
Pertussis
It was originally thought the girls had respiratory
syncytial virus (RSV) but later confirmed it was whooping cough
(pertussis). The longer I become a
parent, the faster I feel I could have a career as an MD. The treatment of pertussis called for biaxin,
an antibiotic. This was given orally to
the kids. Anyone in close contact with
the twins also needed to take antibiotics.
Recovery
After 5 nights at the hospital, the girls finally came home
and now have regained some weight they lost.
The cough has subsided but will take another couple weeks to completely
disappear. Through this whole ordeal I
must say the staff and care at Markham
Stouffville Hospital
As for me, I surprisingly did not over worry. Just another bump in the road and this too shall pass. I let the staff at the hospital do their job and teach me what to do. If something was going to happen, we were in the right place, the hospital. So with that, tune into my next post, jobless with twins.
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