the olivares-martinez family: 2008

gabe got alex's cold and started coughing on thursday night. over the weekend he got progressively worse. we were trying to hold out 'til monday morning to take him to our pediatrician...but on sunday night he was struggling to get a breath in. so we decided to just take him to the ER to be safe.

we arrived at Stanford's ER at roughly 1100 pm. i brought him in his carrier and went to register at the front desk. i told them his symptoms; primarily he was having trouble breathing. the guy behind the desk told the lady next to him "he's having trouble breathing." she in turn told the nurse and immediately they took him out of his carseat and started checking him; getting his weight (6.8 kilos) and putting on a pulse ox reader.

i finished up with the guy at the desk and went over to meet up at the nurses station with the nurse who was already checking gabe. she plugged in his pulse ox for a couple of seconds, took a rectal temp (normal), and asked me some more questions. then she told us that pediatrics was really full and she was sorry but there was going to be a wait.

we went back to the very full pediatric waiting room. there were kids with cuts on their foreheads, fevers, etc etc. we waited about 45 minutes to an hour and then a young doctor came in to check on gabe. she asked more questions and listened to his lungs. while she was checking him, his name was called and we were taken to a curtained off room on the adult side. dr stephen crandall came in and checked on gabe. i expressed my concern of pneumonia and a chest xray was ordered just in case.

the xray came back negative for pneumonia. dr crandall said gabe just had a lower respitory virus and there really wasn't any treatment besides rest. he said it was similar to ear aches in europe...they don't treat them. the kids eventually just get better. we were discharged at around 3am.

when we got home we were pretty pooped. we left gabe in his car seat so he'd be upright instead of lying on his back. we went to sleep.

the next morning gabe still sounded horrible. something didnt feel right, so i called the pediatrician. i left a message with the receptionist about our visit to stanford. during breakfast rudy and i were discussing everything and we were still very worried about gabe. he sounded horrible. so i called the pediatrician again. this time the receptionist got the doctor.

over the phone i told our pediatrician, dr. andrade, that gabe was really struggling to breathe. he wasn't the same baby, he wasn't eating, smiling, and his cry sounded weak. dr. andrade could hear gabe wheezing over the phone and said "put him to the phone." i thought that was a bit funny, but cool that dr. andrade cared enough to try. i let him listen to gabe. Dr. andrade said we needed to take him back to the hospital immediately, he needed a breathing treatment and they needed to check for rsv. he said gabe may even have to be admitted. "shoot, this is bad," i thought. everything was still prepared from last nights trip to the hospital, so i simply stuck gabe in his carseat, grabbed my wallet, and left for the hospital.

we got to good samaritan in good time and in the ER they took gabe back right away. the hooked him up to the pulse ox meter, they took his temp, and weighed him. then another nurse came back and took us to a room. she asked all the same questions and put on more monitors for gabes heart and breathing rate. poor little guys oxygen saturation levels were in the low 90's. the nurse left and the doctor came in, asking more questions and telling me what he was going to check for. he said they were going to do an rsv test, give gabe a breathing treatment, and set him up with oxygen. then the respitory therapist came in and gave gabe a 5-10 min breathing treatment and another medication to clear up his lungs. it seemed like such a relief, because shortly after he got the treatment gabe fell asleep. "finally," i thought, "he gets to rest."

the registration lady came in to get his insurance information. gabe was resting in my arms and i was watching him like a hawk. his breathing started to slow down and eventually his chest didn't move up and down anymore...he had stopped breathing. i flipped out. instinct took over and i grabbed gabe and shouted "wake up!" the registration lady started screaming for the nurse and then gabe started crying. it was by far the scariest moment of my life. it all happened so quickly. the nurses, doctor, and respitory therapist all ran in. they put gabe on oxygen immediately and checked him up and down. they said "sorry, you aren't going home today." they moved us to a room directly across from the doctors station in case anything happened again. then they started the process to get him into icu. they put him on breathing treatments for the next couple of hours until we got up to icu. he tested positive for rsv.

when we got to icu, we were told we really shouldn't be in there with a cold. the whole family was sick. i didn't care, i wanted to be with gabe. but looking at the seriousness of the other two children in the pediatric icu i felt guilty. on top of whatever sicknesses they had, i didn't want them to get rsv.

rudy came as soon as he could, but he had to arrange for nattie and alex to be looked after. we stayed with gabe as long as we could then went home.

the next day we couldn't see gabe b/c we were so sick. we felt horrible. grandpa, the only healthy one in the family at the time, said he'd go so someone would be with him. we had to wait until he could be moved to a normal pediatric room. at about 4pm gabe was moved downstairs.

we've been here in room 174 since.

he's had his ups and downs. sometimes he has coughing fits and struggles for air. they have to suction him out, sometimes even doing a deep suction putting a tube down his nose and into his lungs to clear out the gunk. last night he ripped off his oxygen. i kept putting it back, but he kept pulling it off. so the nurse and i decided to run with it; to test his little lungs. he's been off oxygen ever since, able to keep his oxygen saturation up enough to be okay.