RSV

On Friday, March 9, 2012, Ryder came down with a cough.  He seemed to be deteriorating pretty quickly over the course of that day.  I was concerned enough to take him to the doctor the following morning.  He was diagnosed with RSV, which stands for Respiratory Syncytial Virus.  Almost all kids come down with RSV at least once before they reach the age of two, so it's very common.  In toddlers, older children and adults, RSV typically presents itself as a common cold.  In other words, older kids and adults aren't even aware that they have RSV versus any other type of common cold.  However, RSV can be quite dangerous for younger babies, even fatal in some rare instances.  It's not uncommon for infants who contract RSV to wind up in the hospital.  At the same time, plenty of babies handle RSV just fine and don't require any major medical intervention. 

Because of Ryder's history and his small size, I was immediately nervous.  I had been to the ER with Ryder before, and the experience was beyond traumatizing.  The mere thought of returning there gave me heart palpitations and the sweats. 

Although Ryder was sick for a week and his congestion lingered for a good three weeks.  He fought the RSV like a champ.  His primary symptoms where a cough, deep chest congestion and wheezing.  He ran a low-grade fever for like 24 hours but that was it.  The pediatrician sent us home with a nebulizer and we had to give Ryder breathing treatments every few hours for a week straight. 

Luckily (or unluckily, depending upon how you look at it), Ryder was sick during Playhouse Academy's spring break.  This was lucky because I already had childcare lined up for Ryder since his school was closed.  Had he gotten sick when Playhouse was in session, I would have had to miss an entire week of work or desperately search for last minute child care.  I personally only ended up missing one full day of work (I wanted to stay home to be with Ryder on his sickest day), but my mom, Aunt Lisa and Jill ("JuJu") helped me with the remainder of the week.

Here is a picture of Ryder during a breathing treatment:

I did take Ryder back to the pediatrician to be re-checked on two separate occasions since it seemed like his symptoms were lingering, but apparently RSV symptoms tend to linger and the doctor felt Ryder was on a good road to recovery.

I know this is a boring blog post, but I figured Ryder's first cold was worthy of documentation.