The day before Thanksgiving, Brian got a runny nose. It seemed pretty minor. On Thanksgiving, his eyes started looking more like he was getting a cold and his runny nose got worse and he was starting to get a cough. David had time off for Thanksgiving and we had planned on doing something fun with the kids but when Brian started running a fever on Friday we decided to stay home and relax. David's sister had brought the kids early Christmas presents when she came for Thanksgiving and one of the gifts was a cool puzzle. We decided to break out the puzzle and the kids got involved. Hot chocolate, puzzle, and movies filled the next several days. 
Poor baby, you can see he doesn't feel well but was trying to play anyway. He LOVES to wear hats!!
This hat is special because it was given to Stephen when he was a baby when Natalie was in the hospital at Christmas time. It turned out to be perfect when Natalie later nicknamed Stephen 'The Colonel.'
On a side note---The only place I went over the Thanksgiving weekend didn't turn out to be fun. I had to take my sister's dog to the vet on Black Friday. She was out of town and I was feeding her dog after another person who had been staying at my sister's house left. This infection in his foot developed out of no where and was HORRIBLE. I got him on an antibiotic but that didn't work and after my sister came home he ended up having to have a couple toes amputated. It turns out he had cancer in his toe nail bed. Such a weird, freak thing. 
On Sunday I felt like Brian was sounding worse. It also seemed weird that Stephen ended up getting what Brian had too but had already recovered and never had a fever. I thought about taking Brian to urgent care but he was still playing and so I decided I would wait and take him to the doctor the next morning after the kids went back to school. My doctor's office ended up being closed so I took him to urgent care. By Monday he was making weird crackling noises that I didn't think were upper respiratory. It turned out he had RSV and had bronciolosis. They felt like he might have pnemonia but once they did a breathing treatment he cleared up a lot. They told me that day 5 to 7 with RSV is the worst, which is exactly what I was seeing.
None of my kids have ever needed breathing treatments before. Brian was kind of older to have as much trouble with RSV as he did but David was hospitalized for bronchitis when he was five and was in the hospital for a week. David said he thinks what Brian had sounded the same as what he had as a kid. Brian looks so much like David--maybe they are both more susceptible to lung stuff.
Brian really scared me over night Monday and I was almost ready to take him to the emergency room. He had such a high fever and his breathing was really scaring me. David was working overnight and I didn't sleep, I watched him like a hawk. Once I got his fever down he started to do better. I took him back to the doctor the next day and even though his chest was really crunchy again, she didn't think he had pnemonia. He looked much better once he was up in his car seat---I think it kept his chest clear to be sitting up. What a relief--it really was scary.
The other bad thing is that he was really having a hard time eating and drinking without gagging from all the mucus. The fever with the RSV lasted 6 or 7 days. Prior to getting RSV he had another virus and and ear infection where he had a fever for six days as well and he didn't eat well with that either. He was only better for a week between the two viruses. With being sick that much, he really lost a lot of weight and looked even more like Natalie as a baby than usual. I can promise you that I wasn't feeling too good about having my baby sick that much and having him look more like Natalie at the ages leading up to her getting sick didn't go unnoticed for me.
Luckily Brian looked better when the doctor saw him Tuesday morning because I had a procedure that afternoon to burn some of the nerves in my spine. I ended up keeping my appointment since he was doing better. I love this picture of the three of them asleep as David was driving me home from my procedure. Such cuties!!!
On a side note- I ended up getting sick that night from the pain medicine combined with the anesthesia. It was quite painful that first night but I recovered pretty well and felt pretty good within two days.
We had wanted to get our tree up Thanksgiving weekend but hadn't with Brian being sick, so even though I wasn't feeling perfect I was insistent we go get our tree. We just picked one from Krogers, but I was glad we got it that day because the ICE storm hit us the next day.
Cutie!! Feeling better!
The lucky thing about the RSV is that Brian ended up recovering well--even though he scared us a few times. It was funny because he LOVED doing his breathing treatments and would beg for them. I think it must've made him feel so much better--he would get SO relaxed as soon as they started.
And with all the time at home, we ended up getting that puzzle done!!!
It was a pretty amazing puzzle and it was definitely a challenge. The kids lost focus after a few days, but David and I really enjoyed doing it together. We were pretty proud of it!!
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