ER visit!

Ethan got sick in early February.

He had missed several days of school.  One night several hours after he had gone to bed he came into my bedroom and looked at me with this look, and I knew that something was wrong!  He was coughing and struggling to breath!  I asked if he was wheezing, if he thought he was having an asthma attack?  He said, "No mom, this is different!  This isn't asthma!"  I wasn't sure what to do but I knew that Ethan was panicking and so I had better do something!  I asked David what he thought I should do and he said, "Just take him to the ER."  Well okay then, I guess we are going to the ER!

We got to the ER and he was still struggling.  They took us back to a room and his oxygen levels were just fine.  But his blood pressure however was out of control!  The doctor and nurse were both very upset about his blood pressure!  They probably took it 6 different times in just a few minutes!  During this time Ethan's face was tingling and going numb.  The doctor explained to me that he was hyperventilating and that he needed to slow down his breathing.  They put a mask with a bag attached to it on his face and told him to slow down his breathing!  Meanwhile the doctor got on the computer to look up all of Ethan's medical history.  She was thinking out loud while talking to the nurse about his blood pressure. It was very obvious that his blood pressure being that high was not normal and that it could potentially be something serious!  Then the nurse took his blood pressure one last time and it was normal.  He reported it to the doctor and she acted very relieved.  The weird this was, that from that time on they were no longer concerned about his blood pressure again.  Once Ethan's breathing became controlled they took him back for X-rays.  Finally they decided that he had adult croop.  They gave him a shot of steroids and sent him on his way.

He seemed to improve over the next few days and then he got worse.  I couldn't help worrying about his blood pressure though!  I just felt like it was so odd that it was so high so many times and then all of a sudden came down to normal.  I of course read everything I could on line about high blood pressure and that even gave me more reason to worry.  I ended up taking him into his regular doctor, talking to him about our experience, and getting him on some more medication.  He assured me that the high blood pressure readings they had gotten were just false readings.  Most likely because of his stress and panic, it was causing the false read.  I don't know, I still think it was kinda weird!  Anyways, Ethan continued to cough for the next 3 months!  I personally think that he probably really had whooping cough.  I heard of several people being diagnosed with whooping cough around that time and I think it was going around. 

But Ethan eventually made a full recovery and he is doing great now!

THE END