Bekah's Hospital Journey

This post is more for me to remember our ordeal, so if you don’t care about all the details, then just know that Bekah is now fine, but her asthma will likely be a long journey.

Bekah woke up the Sunday morning after Thanksgiving wheezing much more than usual, so I decided to take her to a doctor. But, being Sunday, there weren't any doctors open, so I took her to Redi Clinic in HEB. Upon looking at her, the nurse immediately took her pulse-ox (which shows her oxygen saturation as a percentage...the closer to 100% the better...anything below 95 is bad) and it was 88. So, the nurse said we needed to go to an emergency room ASAP. In the interest of time, I took her to a freestanding ER in Pearland instead of a major hospital. Well, after 4 hours, 7 breathing treatments for her asthma, a chest x-ray, an IV, antibiotics, steroids and continuous oxygen, they transferred her by ambulance to the ER at Texas Children's Hospital downtown. They had determined that she most likely had pneumonia, but it was mostly her asthma that was causing her to not be able to hold her oxygen level. She was on oxygen continuously during the ambulance ride, and when we arrived at Texas Children’s, the nurse that checked her in decided to see what Bekah’s body would do if she were off the oxygen. Well, her saturation dropped to 83% and the ambulance nurse was insisting that the hospital nurse put the oxygen back on her, so we ended up in a room immediately with oxygen back on and 2 more breathing treatments (that makes 9 rounds in a 9 hour period).

She spent 5 more hours in that emergency room before finally being given a room on the pulmonary floor. It was a little unsettling to be on the same floor with all the children suffering with things like cystic fibrosis where they spend months at a time in the hospital. I felt like Bekah was suffering enough with just asthma, and I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have your child in the hospital for a month or longer.

As soon as we got a room, the nurse mentioned that Bekah would need to be on the nasal oxygen (the little tubes that go in their nose) instead of the mask, because there was no way to wean her off of the oxygen using the mask. Bekah has been doing breathing treatments at home with a mask (we have an elephant, a fish, and a dinosaur) since she was about 6 months old, so she is used to that…the nose thing really freaked her out. I fought her for 3 days to finally get her to leave it in her nose. We kept having to revert back to the mask because she HAD to have oxygen, and she wouldn’t leave the nose things in her nose. One doctor actually told Bekah that if she wouldn’t wear the nose thing that she would have to live in the hospital forever. I thought that was a little over the top, and very scary to a sick 3 year old who is already afraid.

The nights were the hardest part for both of us. Every time Bekah would roll over in her sleep, her mask would shift and her oxygen would drop, sending the alarms into a frenzy and calling the nurses into the room. It was scary how fast her oxygen levels would drop without that mask on. With the mask she would be at about a 97, and once it shifted she would drop to around 87 within just a few seconds. The nurse would also come in about every 3-4 hours to check her vital signs, and the respiratory therapist came in every 4 hours (but not the same 4 hours as the nurse, of course) to give her a breathing treatment and her inhaler. The poor kid never got to sleep, and the whole ordeal just wore her out. On Tuesday she took a 3 hour nap, which she hasn’t done in quite some time. She doesn’t take naps at home at all anymore, unless she falls asleep in her car seat, so a 3 hour nap is just unheard of.

Tuesday evening her dad and brothers came to visit, and she was able to be off the oxygen for about 30 minutes. Unfortunately, when her brothers left and she settled down, her oxygen dropped to about 85, and we had to put it back on at a higher level than when we took it off. She went to bed Tuesday night, and I really didn’t have much hope that we were going home anytime soon.

Come Wednesday morning, the doctor came in about 7:30 and turned off the oxygen. I didn’t know she had done it, and it kind of freaked me out, because Bekah was holding her levels at about 91 by herself! It wasn’t great, but she was above 90 for the first time on her own in 4 days, so it was a big step. I got even more freaked out when the doctor declared that Bekah had held her oxygen for an hour and a half, and now she could go home. What?? No further testing, no follow up chest x-ray, nothing. We took the oxygen off her completely, unhooked the monitor that I had watched so closely all that time, and she was free! What was really funny was that her room was right across the hall from the playroom, and since Bekah was oxygen dependent, she hadn’t been able to play in there the whole time. She had watched kids riding bikes and doing art projects in the playroom for 4 days, and now she got to join them! (The volunteers had been bringing her things to do in her room, and I had been going to get board games and toys from the playroom all week, but it just wasn’t the same.) With her IV still in her arm, she took off in a little car and rode back and forth down the hall for about 30 minutes. She went in the playroom and made a Christmas tree with stickers, and did a few puzzles before her dad and Caleb showed up to take us home. The doctors insisted that Bekah have a flu shot before she left, and the screaming that it brought out in the tired little girl was the worst part of the whole trip!! You could literally hear her on the opposite side of the floor.

We took all the pictures off her door (by the way, she did all of them with her left hand because her right arm had her IV in it) and packed up her new toys (some from me, some from the nurses and volunteers) to get ready for our discharge papers. Thankfully it didn’t take too long and we were on our way home! Of course, we were leaving with prescriptions for 2 antibiotics (one specifically for asthma), steroids, and 2 different inhalers (one maintenance, one rescue). She has to be on her maintenance inhaler twice a day until further notice. On a side note, her discharge papers stated “possible pneumonia”, so we’re still not certain was caused it all. The doctors have said they really think it was just her asthma out of control.

Bekah has now been home for about a week, and seems to be doing just fine now. She is finished with all her medications except the maintenance inhaler. I took her for a re-check last Friday (2 days after she came home) and the doctor said she was still wheezing, but her oxygen was better. She told me to keep a close watch on her and to bring her back if I noticed her wheezing badly or if she started coughing again.

A few days later I took Bekah with me to get our nails done. She was such a trooper the whole time in the hospital, and really didn't complain much at all. I was very proud of her, and I knew she deserved a reward for being such a brave, big girl!

So, that’s our story. I feel so blessed and thankful to have a healthy family, and that Bekah’s ordeal was only asthma and not something more. I’m sorry this has been so long, and if you’re still reading then thank you for your interest and caring about my baby girl. Hug your kids, and watch them grow up big and strong…I have now seen with my own eyes how fragile little lives can be, and it has made me truly appreciate our healthy blessings.