Goodnight 4!

There's been a lot happening in our home. Tonight, Penny says goodnight to 4. When she wakes up, she'll be 5! She's been having a blast celebrating in advance, as the Birthday Princess crown came out about two weeks before her birthday.

She celebrated with a few friends at a cooking party at a local cooking store. It was so much fun! The girls made their own pizzas and popcorn and decorated cupcakes. Very age appropriate and great for a small group party. I think they all had a blast, especially when they got to sing Karaoke as they finished up.

In the meantime, Mr. P has been feeling under the weather. What we thought was just a simple virus after a trip to the pediatrician turned into a full-out hospital stay. We took Porter to the doctor on Friday, as he was running a fever and showed some virus symptoms. The doctor said he didn't think it was flu or anything serious and to continue with our typical course of care for a virus, including our asthma care plan, if needed. We gave him some motrin around midnight that night and on Saturday morning, he woke up fever-free, happy and playful. Papa came to visit so we could both go to Penny's birthday party. While we were gone, his fever spiked and he became very sick, very quickly. Papa did everything that we had asked of him- gave tylenol and albuterol. But, Mr. P still had trouble breathing and started showing signs of respiratory distress (not severe, but signs). We checked his "pulse ox" and were surprised by how low it was. We talked to the pediatrician and headed off to Bryn Mawr hospital. We hoped some deep suction and nebulizer treatments in the ER would do the trick. After three one-hour continuous nebulizer treatments were unsuccessful, and after increasing the dose of oxygen that he could receive as much as they were comfortable, the docs at Bryn Mawr decided to send him to CHOP for ICU care. (Papa came to the ER with us and was a huge help!)

Mr. P had his first ambulance ride. The steroids and magnesium that the Bryn Mawr docs administered finally kicked in during the ambulance ride and Mr. P was stable as could be (but with high doses of Oxygen) by the time we arrived at CHOP. We were admitted to the PICU, still on high flow oxygen. Throughout the night, he was able to wean off high flow, down to lower dose oxygen. 

On Saturday, we were transferred to a General Pediatric floor, under the care of the Allergy & Asthma team. He tested positive for metapneumo virus, one that can hit kids with reactive airway disease (asthma  under age 3) pretty hard. It was especially nerve wracking for mommy, as it was so different from the RSV that he had last winter. RSV responded well to albuterol...this one didn't.

So here we sit, at CHOP, on goodnight 4 night. My heart is wishing I could be two places at once. But, we're very hopeful that we'll head home tomorrow, to reunite with our Big 5 year old. To say Porter and I miss her is an understatement. We're very thankful that Mr. P is responding to treatments and that he was up and moving today! 

Many thanks to daddy, Papa, Nana and the aunties for holding down the fort while we were away. And to everyone who offered to help and sent prayers and positive thoughts. We were, once again, greatly impressed with all the amazing things happening here at CHOP. From the volunteers who manned the Wawa Coffee Cart this morning to getting to have real conversations with the nurses talking about the things they love about CHOP, it really is a great place to be. I'm hoping I can take some of their ideas back to the CHOP Foundation and turn them into a reality.