Panicking the Appropriate Amount

There is rush your kid to the ER panic…

and then there is page the cardiologist on call panic.

Tonight was page the cardiologist panic.  Rowan looked a bit blue this afternoon so I hooked up his pulse ox probe.  I normally try to leave it off when he is awake and active because he coughs or struggles to try to do things and it alarms a lot and scares him and Evelyn and it makes me stinking anxious too.

So – probe on.  Hello 60s.  So I turned his oxygen up from 1/2L to 3/4L.  No change.  3/4L to 1L…no change.  1.5L…low 70s.

Not good enough.  I noticed he was looking a little bit puffy too.

So I called the cardiologist office (of course this happens at 6pm right after the office closed).  Within 5 minutes the cardiologist calls.  After talking with her for a few minutes, she tells me that I should give him a little bit of tylenol in case he has a low grade fever from the vaccinations he got yesterday and that I should make sure he responds well to his lasix dose.  She thinks this is a fluid balance issue, but if he doesn’t get better or gets worse – he may need to go to the ER. 

So I go back in the room Rowan is now screaming and crying and sweating in.  Evelyn had opened the pizza box after crying because I told her she couldn’t eat pizza until Dad got home.  She cleverly (during my 3 minute phone conversation in the closet so I could hear the cardiologist) had realized that ranch dressing was in fact, NOT pizza so she had been eating it with her fingers and painting the dining room table.

I notice that Rowan isn’t really SATing much higher, despite the higher oxygen.  After a little while I turn it back down to 1/2 L…and it doesn’t change.  After about an hour, the Lasix works…and he’s SATing just fine again.

Punk.

So no real worry.  He may need an extra dose of his “de-puffing” medicine every now and then…but he’s stinking fine.

So I had a panic attack when I thought I was about to have to rush him back to the hospital by myself with Evelyn on board…and now am just tired/relieved.

Maybe he’ll be nice after this little scare tactic and sleep tonight so I can too.