The Dreaded RSV Hits Home

After a couple of days of high fever and obvious discomfort, Ben needed to be seen by a doctor.  We were able to get him in to see pediatrics at our hospital, but because his Tylenol had kicked in perhaps a little too well, he had no fever and was acting completely normal.  They didn't do much but tell us it was a cold and send us on our way.  He didn't sleep much at all that night.

Taking a nap the only way he could at the beginning of this illness.

The next day he woke up with a fever over 102--higher than any fever our kids have ever had.  He was whiny and miserable and obviously sick.  When I got home from work that day, he was still in pretty rough shape, so I knew we had to take him in or I'd never be able to relax.

As soon as we got to the ER, the triage nurse came out and made an announcement that it was shift change and thanking everyone for their patience.  He said he knew many of them had already been there for 3-4 hours.  I wanted to leave right then.  The place was packed with people who were obviously ill or hurting, and I couldn't help but wonder if I was overreacting.  Turns out, I wasn't.

Despite having taken Tylenol two hours before we arrived in triage, Ben's temp was still 102.  They gave him more fever-reducing medication and took us back much quicker than three hours.  All of the medical personnel we saw were knowledgable about CF (I know that seems obvious, but you'd be surprised!), and not once did someone act as though I was just a paranoid mother.  They kept a close eye on his temp, did a respiratory panel nasal swab to check for viruses, and requested a chest x-ray.

There was some debate about whether or not the x-ray showed anything, so we were there for quite some time while radiology and ER talked with peds to decide how to proceed (we wouldn't get swab results for a couple of days).  Finally, they sent us home with just-in-case antibiotics and instructions to call our CF clinic to review everything and advise on our next steps.

I called our CF nurse the next morning.  Since they're at the same hospital, she was able to look up the swab results and the x-ray and have the pulmonologist look at the films.

The bad news:  The panel came back positive for RSV, and the radiologist was right that there was a small density on the middle lobe of Ben's right lung.

The good news:  Clinic didn't want to admit him, since they said they would just be doing what we would be doing at home (increase vest treatments to 4x/day with 2 sessions of manual CPT--chest physiotherapy--in between, and give the amoxicillin as a safety precaution since Ben has cultured staph in the past).

RSV is rough on almost all small children, but it is particualry dangerous for kids with CF, asthma, and other chronic lung diseases.  (I recently spoke with a fellow CF mom whose little one is on day 11 of a hospital stay including oxygen because of this virus!)  We are very fortunate things weren't worse.

Ben has been fever-free and sleeping through the night again ever since our ER visit.  He is drinking fluids well again and acting quite like his old self.  Extra treatments keep us chained to the house, but if we can get our baby through RSV without permanent lung damage and get back to baseline, then it is worth every second!

Once the fever broke, he felt much better.

With a smile like this, we know he'll be back in no time.  We're not going to let a little RSV get us down!

When your kid won't eat much and a healthy weight is critical, a can of olives is a perfectly reasonable lunch request.