I don't remember exactly when I started speaking in medical terms, it just sort of happened. I used to define Evey and Ben's illnesses in normal every day terms. Fast heart beat. Barky cough. Old man cough - I really did say that once when Ben was wheezing really bad because I didn't know how else to describe it. Now terms like sinus rhythm, tachycardia, bronchiolitis, chronic lung disease are part of my every day vocabulary and I am frequently asked by health care professionals if I'm a nurse. Nope. Just a mom.
So I'm digressing. Ben's chest x-ray was negative yesterday. AWESOME. Ben has non-RSV bronchiolitis. Again. Not awesome. Non RSV bronchiolitis - what is it? It's essentially RSV without the actual RSV virus. So what is that? It's swelling of the teeny tiny airways in his lungs and is caused by a virus that infects the lower part of his lungs. It causes a nasty cough, shortness of breath, a runny nose, and wheezing, really bad wheezing. Most kids don't get this unless they fall into a high risk category. High risk: born prematurely, having chronic lung disease, having congenital heart disease, are male. Ben meets everyone of those criterea. Okay so again, I'm digressing. Sorry for the medical terminology lesson. So the million dollar question...how do we treat it? Well, that's a tough one. We give him breathing treatments and steriods and pray really hard that they help him breath enough to get by while his imune system does it's job of getting rid of the virus. If they don't we go back to the hospital so we can help him breath a little more forcefully with oxygen.
