Another Ambulance Ride

Today we went to visit Dr. Rhame because Ryan had been very sick over the weekend.  He was running a high fever (103.9), had a lot of congestion, was vomiting, and had a dark discharge from his right ear.  Ryan does not normally run fevers at all, even with ear infections, and the fevers were barely responding to Tylenol or Motrin.  Then last night he started gagging and/or vomiting with any food beyond just a slow drip of Gatorade.  

In retrospect, I probably should have taken him to the Emergency Room last night, but I thought I'd wait until the Pediatrician was back in his office.  It was just Feb 28th that we were in the Pediatrician's office for very similiar symptoms and he gave Ryan a 10-day course of Amoxicillin.  He had only finished that about a week ago.

Now it seems the same symptoms are back with a vengeance, plus a few new ones ... fever and vomiting. 

So, we arrived at the Dr's appointment and within just a few minutes after arriving, probably less than 20 minutes, we were leaving with Ryan on a stretcher in an ambulance.

Why?  Because when they checked his Oxygen saturation levels they were in the 70's.  

So Nelda rode with Ryan in the back of the ambulance and I followed them to the hospital.  When we got settled in our room, Dr. Armstrong met us.  As he walked in he said, "It's been just over a year."  He was right.  Last March we were at this hospital for very similar symptoms.  Nelda and I had just been discussing that.  We were discharged on March 13, 2011 with metopneumoviral pneumonia.  

So, Dr. Armstrong examined Ryan.  He discovered that the right ear is indeed infected.  His ear drum "doesn't look right."  It is yellow and inflamed, and draining.  His left ear is okay with no abnormal drainage.  The right lower lobe of Ryan's lung has no breathe sounds and the left lung sounds crackly.  However, it doesn't sound like last year.  

He ordered a chest x-ray, blood work and breathing treatments.  He also wants to hold off on any food for now to give his stomach a rest.  Sometimes lower respiratory stress can cause upper gi stress as well.  He'll give just IV fluids for now.