Deja Vu

It was deja vu  the other night.  I came home from work and knew the boys needed to go to the doctor.  They were begging to go.  Andy didn’t think they needed to go so the onus was on me.  I loaded up Jude and Levi and had to struggle to carry them into the walk-in clinic since neither of them really had any strength to walk and I didn’t really have the strength to carry them both in at the same time.  They curled up in balls on the waiting room chairs of their pediatrician.  They were called back fairly quickly, maybe because the clinic didn’t want them coughing or throwing up all over the waiting room.  I didn’t know we’d be there for the next couple hours.  It was discovered that Jude had a severe ear infection.  He took one for the team when they stuck a Q-tip half way into his head to see if he had the flu (thinking they would just be able to avoid testing Levi).  Later, after Levi, who like Jude had a severe ear injection, kept reading low on oxygen, they decided they had to test him with the Q-tip test.  He tested positive for RSV (which is a virus I really hate since it cost us $8,000 in out-of-pocket medical expenses when Levi and Asher were hospitalized for it in a same year in which we had $4,000 of out-of-pocket medical expenses for Jude.)  After a nebulizer failed to improve Levi’s oxygen level, I was soon warned about the possibility of admitting Levi to the hospital.  The next thing I knew, the clinic called an ambulance to come get Levi to bring him to the hospital.  This same thing happened when Levi was 22 months old.  Same dad in denial; same walk-in clinic; same kid; same virus; same ambulance ride (except that I couldn’t go with him since I had Jude along for the ride). Everything was the same except that the hospital we wanted was full.  Our 2nd choice hospital was also full.  So, Levi got one of the last beds at the U of M.  His ambulance drivers (Ernie and some other guy) seemed just thrilled to be transporting such a cute little patient.  They seemed to think Levi would be freaked out about riding alone with them, put I knew Levi would enjoy racing Jude and me to the hospital.  And, no surprise, he won.  Thankfully, the hospital stay was just for a day.  While we were told that Levi had a severe ear infection, RSV and pneumonia, it turns out that he was just carrying the RSV virus and not showing any symptoms of it.  He also sounded like he had pneumonia, but the x-ray proved otherwise.  Happy to have everyone home!