What a day ...

In just a matter of a few short hours, my sweet (and YES, he has been very, very sweet lately!!) boy took a horrible turn with his breathing. With all the talk of the Swine Flu, I have become very fearful that my little guy would get it. Being the overly paranoid mommy that I am, I was immediately on the phone with the after hours nurse last night working out a treatment plan for him to get him through the night. Thank heavens we have all the paraphernalia needed to do breathing treatments at the drop of a hat!

Rowdy woke us up around 3am shivering and claiming he was freezing. You could have cooked Thanksgiving dinner on his skin, he was so hot! From that point on, I took little cat naps (in between cleaning the carpet and changing the sheets from his vomiting) waiting for the pediatrician's office to open. Look how pathetic this little guy is ...

I have a few observations from my day ...

1) Although you would never wish your child any type of respiratory distress, it can come in handy during a flu outbreak when you are needing to get your child to the doctor. We were given immediate attention when I called to make an appointment. I had barely set my rear in a chair in the waiting room before we were being called back. We were never left without a nurse or the PA the entire 30 minutes we were in the office. The fact that we were in and out of the pediatrician's office in the midst of a flu outbreak is a miracle in and of its self!

2) The mommies in the waiting room looked much worse than the kids that were waiting to be seen. Looked like I wasn't the only one up most of the night.

3) Did you know that apparently there is a 40% false negative rate on the flu test? I had no idea! Rowdy's test came back negative (even though he was showing all the signs of H1N1) so he was given Tamiflu. See, another benefit for a child with respiratory distress ... not everyone gets a Tamiflu prescription.

4) It apparently takes no less than 4 hours to have a prescription filled once it is called in to our local pharmacy. Should you show up in person, they miraculously can have it filled sooner ...

I started this post on Thursday ... it is now Saturday. Been a little busy :) So, bottom line is Rowdy is recuperating nicely from pneumonia. We had a chest x-ray done after leaving the pediatrician's office (which showed a small spot on one of his lungs). Other than a small scare involving a reaction to the Tamiflu, he is improving nicely. Looks like he will be at school on Monday. He has been fever-free for over 24 hours now and is irritating his sister. Looks like he is feeling better!