In the last post I mentioned that Massimo was really very grumpy on Sunday morning, but that he was better in the afternoon and OK overnight. However, on Monday around midmorning he started being really grumpy and wanting to sleep but not staying asleep and constantly wanting to be held. Then at 2.30 ish he went very purple and clammy. He was doing a poo and I put it down to that but even after he had recovered he was still very unhappy, very restless and clearly in discomfort. The paracetamol and ibuprofen I had given him seemed not to have made any difference at all. At around 3.30 I called Justin in despair and he came home to help. By 5 pm, with no improvement and signs of a temperature starting I called PICU for advice. The sister on duty and myself decided that he probably had a bacterial infection (on top of the viral one) which would definitely account for the grumpiness and that a course of antibiotics would be the next step – clearly not a PICU requirement. We went to the GP who listened to his chest and prescribed the antibiotics. She was very concerned that his breathing wasn’t good and that if there weren’t signs of improvement by the evening we should take him to casualty. It was 6.30 pm at this point.
We strolled up to Boots to collect his prescription and came home, gave him the first dose, a ventolin nebuliser and then put him to bed with a little sedative to help him sleep. The walk in his buggy seemed to have had a positive effect on his temperature and it hasn’t been up again since. Feeling slightly happier about him once he was asleep and settled, and knowing that we had a nurse looking after him overnight, we decided he would stay at home, for now.
Helen arrived at 9 pm, she gave him another ventolin nebuliser and that seemed to really help him. When we went up to bed, his heart rate had come down, not as low as it normally is, but enough to make us feel happier about his general wellbeing. Within half an hour of getting into bed we heard his monitor alarm over and over in a short space of time. I popped into his room to check all was OK and Helen told me that he had had a bad moment when his oxygen levels had dropped but that he had recovered well. We went to sleep.
At 1.50 am, Helen knocked on the door. He had had another episode and was clammy and sweaty and his oxygen requirement had gone up to 1 litre per minute. She thought he wasn’t well enough to be at home. We called an ambulance. By 2.30 we were in A&E, having panicked everyone as they had been told that a child was coming in with blue lights and a blocked trachy. We updated them and it was generally felt that everything up to now had been correct, but that obviously he was struggling with his breathing and more antibiotics, more sedative (to get him to rest) and CPAP would be a good idea. At 4.30 am we left him in PICU’s capable hands, fast asleep and really very settled.
I feel as though by posting our intention to go to France, I have jinxed it. We haven’t given up on going quite yet, we will see what the next 24 hours bring.