On Tuesday the 15th, Caleb was eating a snack of Chex Mix with the girls. He sort of choked on a piece, but once I got to him he seemed to be just fine, so I didn't worry much about it. He still coughed once in a while that night, but nothing major. A couple hours later he was sitting on my lap and I noticed that I could hear a whistle when he breathed. Knowing that there were lots of different nuts in the mix, I just assumed that maybe he had a nut sensitivity to one of them. I let Josh know (he was at work) and then just watched Caleb closely for any swelling, rashes, etc. Nothing else ever happened, just that weird wheezy whistle. It didn't seem to bother him in the least, either. I thought about taking him for a quick visit to the ER, but knowing that it was evening, would be busy, and there would be nothing quick about the visit, I decided to stay home with him and just check on him a lot. Nothing ever happened...
So the next day, the wheeze was still there, but pretty quiet. But once Caleb starting really running around, it got a lot louder. So just to have it checked on, I called his doctor and set up an appointment for later that day. Josh was back at work, so I dragged all four kids to the doctor at 6:30. The doctor listened to his lungs from each side over and over and over. He decided that it sounded like something was in his lung. One of them had lower breath sounds than the other. He told us not to wait for morning, but to go right over to the hospital and get it xrayed. So we did. Isabel stayed at a friend's house in our ward, and Becca and Joshy went with me to the hospital.
They did Xrays on him ( I have pics in my phone of the contraption they had to use to hold him still... he was very non-cooperative) and upon looking at them, they called the doctor, and he looked at them too. They decided there was indeed something in there, but since we figured it must be a piece of Chex Mix, the x-ray looked right through it. They could see that one lung was blocked, air was getting in, but not back out. So one lung was swollen up larger than the other. They told us that we then needed to go to the Children's Hospital in Seattle, as our hospital didn't have the ability to do the scope procedure on kids so small. Our hospital is very good and nice, but not super big. So I called Josh at work, told him we were on our way. We picked up Isabel, packed up bags for the kids as fast as we could, and left. We picked Josh up from work and just left his car there. We got down to Seattle (about an hour drive at what was now 10:00 ish) and met up with Grandma Tracy in the ER. She was there to pick up the other kids to take them back to her house so that they wouldn't be waiting around in the hospital. She had also brought a family friend from her ward with her so that he could help Josh give Caleb a blessing.
In the ER, there was really no place to do a blessing, so they ended up taking Caleb into the bathroom and giving him a blessing. Then Grandma went home, took the kids, and it was just me and Josh and Caleb left. We waited for an eternity in the ER, and finally got taken back after midnight. It seems like we were in the ER room for an eternity, with a constant stream of doctors, nurses, pokes, prods, and nebulizer treatments for Caleb. All of which he hated, of course. He was to the point that he would see a stethoscope and just start to cry.
At one point, a doctor was looking in his mouth with a tongue depressor, and went too far in. She gagged him in the worst way, and Caleb coughed, choked, gagged... we thought for sure he was going to vomit. It was a gag like I've never seen a baby do. We think at that point that he choked up whatever was in his lungs, and swallowed it, but nobody is for sure about that. We finally got admitted to the hospital and got a room at 6:30 am. Yay for beds! Yay for our own bathroom! We all knocked out pretty fast, since we'd been up all night. Caleb had little bitty naps, but there were just too many interruptions to get any real rest.
Unfortunately, at 8:30 a couple nurses came in and told us that it was time to get another set of xrays. So with our two hours of sleep, we went. Caleb got more xrays, and we went back to his room. Now in all of this, Caleb has not been allowed to eat or drink, since the procedure to remove whatever is in his lung is through the mouth with a scope. So he's starving. And we can't eat either, because he would see it and that would just cause more trouble. At this point he's just a mess, he's tired, hungry, has wires and tubes attached to him. He would go between ten minutes of calm/tired/exhausted and then ten minutes of thrashing, trying to pull out his IV, etc. No fun.
A couple hours later they decided that the Xrays were from the wrong angle or something and they couldn't see what they wanted to. So we went again. Once those come back, they decide that the xrays are inconclusive as to whether the chunk is still in his lung and just moved, or if it is out. So we're going to still do the scope. He went into the Operating Room around noon, and they told us it would be 45 minutes or so. We were starving and took our pager and headed to go get lunch. As soon as we have our food, get sat down, but not started eating, our pager went off. So we loaded everything up on a tray and headed back to the surgery area. Caleb was already done and the doctor was ready to fill us in! Wow!
They didn't find anything, but could see an inflamed area with some muck, that they figure was the spot that had the food in it before the big gagging. But everything was good, they just cleaned it up and sent him to recovery. So we took our food back to the room and ate while we waited for Caleb's return. They told us he'd be in recovery a half hour to 45 minutes. We got to the room, and just a couple minutes later, there was a knock at the door, and it was a nurse with Caleb already. He was kind of drowsy, but awake. So we ate our lunch, while having some snuggle time. They wanted to get Caleb to eat, and brought him some yogurt. They wanted him to get 2 oz down and keep it down, but by the time they told us that much, he'd already downed the whole cup and was asking for more. So they figured he was doing great. He ate three tubs of yogurt, a tub of apple sauce, and a bag of teddy grahams. So they started the checkout procedures, since he was doing better than they had expected. We figured we'd be out around 6, but he was doing so great, I think we were out by 2. We left, headed to Grandma's, and had nice naps.
And yesterday he had his follow up appointment with this doctor and they said his lungs sounded perfect. The best news ever. :)
So here are a few pictures, there are more on my phone, but I haven't downloaded those to the computer yet. Maybe another day...
