Pneumonia, Snow, and Snarls

Tuesday, Steve came home from work and promptly started feeling unwell. Periodically, usually when he's unbalanced somewhere in his life (ie, not enough sleep/water or too much sugar), his heart starts beating irregularly. Every time it happens we go to the ER where his heart stops beating irregularly, the doctor runs a lot of tests, and nothing happens. Every time I tell myself that the next time we'll try waiting it out, but when it happens I just can't take that risk. One doesn't mess with the heart.

My mom came to babysit Matthew and we headed to the ER. The lady at the check-in booth is a good friend of mine that I hadn't seen for awhile, so we caught up while the nurses took Steve in for an EKG and then situated in a room, connected to all sorts of machines and IVs. By the time I got to his room 10 minutes later, his heart was beating regularly again, which was a relief, of course. We sat for a bit, admittedly enjoying watching The Voice without a 2-year old demanding our attention. The doctor came in and said one of Steve's tests didn't rule out a clot in his lungs, so he wanted to do a CT scan to make sure there wasn't a clot. The last time Steve had a CT scan, we discovered he's allergic to the dye, so the doctor ordered a bunch of drugs to be put into Steve's IV beforehand to counteract the allergic reaction beforehand. While we waited for the drugs to get into his system, a tech came in and took an x-ray of Steve's chest.

The drugs worked, Steve didn't have an allergic reaction, and we were feeling like it was almost time to go home when the doctor came in and said Steve didn't have a clot in his lungs (yay!) but he had pneumonia. You could have knocked us down with a feather...Steve wasn't experiencing any of the symptoms of pneumonia - fever, difficulty breathing, etc. The doctor and nursed watched Steve's oxygen levels for a bit after taking him off oxygen and almost had him stay overnight. Fortunately, they let him go home...with a breathing apparatus to help strengthen his lungs, and inhaler, and a prescription for an antibiotic. We arrived home after 11pm.

Steve has stayed home the rest of the week. Wednesday he wasn't feeling bad at all but since pneumonia can be contagious, he didn't want to risk spreading it at work. He has pretty much stayed out of the scene at home so as not to infect Matthew, so it's almost been like he's been at work. Except I can leave Matthew with him watching a movie while I clean the house and shower. Today, Steve is feeling kind of cruddy, the worst he's felt all week. I think part of it is the forced inactivity; he doesn't do well with having to do nothing all day.

The snow probably doesn't help. Yep, I said snow. Lovely spring time weather. A few days ago it was upper 60's, sunny with a slight breeze. Today, snow. So, the sky is gray and gloomy. Even though it's kind of pretty, after being in the house all day for several days, it probably doesn't do a lot to boost Steve's spirits.

Just before I put Matthew down for "quiet time" (he rarely naps any more but will stay in his crib for 2+ hours playing cars happily), we got out the crayons and coloring books. One is full of pictures of Hot Wheels cars and drivers and that is the one we colored today. There are skulls on almost every page and Matthew calls them "bad guys". As he colored them black, he made a bunch of snarly faces. I thought they were super cute. Here's an example:

I wish I could have gotten some of his faces full on but he wouldn't hold still and certainly wouldn't do the snarl while looking at me. It was cute.

Other than Steve's pneumonia, we're all doing fairly well. I hope you are too!

Julie :)