We went about our business, upping his nebs, and later that afternoon, we got a call from the clinic. That obviously wasn't good news! Sure enough, he had Pertussis. WHAT?!@# How could he get that? He had been vaccinated. How could he get this illness that had supposedly been eradicated in current times? The nurse explained that he had to have been within three feet of whoever passed it on to him. And within that three feet, the person had to cough directly on him with him inhaling the droplets. I just couldn't imagine where he caught it. And I was so disgusted!!!
With a Pertussis diagnosis, that meant that the whole family had to be treated by antibiotics as precaution and prevention of any spread. Not only did the family need to be treated, anyone who had spent any amount of time with Jack needed to be treated too. That meant Mom and Dad had to be treated as they'd been caring for him while I was in Boston and also our babysitter who had been babysitting a couple mornings a week. What a nightmare! Once we all started the antibiotics we were advised to stay inside away from anyone. Awesome to be quarantined in the middle of summer!
The nightmare only got worse as Jack's cough got worse---much worse. The cough started out as a nagging "asthma" cough. It turned into the true "whooping" cough. The cough goes on and on and then while trying to catch your breath, you "whoop" air in. Horrible. Jack had a couple really bad spells, one of which he quit breathing and I took him to the ER. I just couldn't understand how they could do NOTHING to help him. In fact, they told me we should feel "lucky" he hasn't broken ribs from coughing so hard! Then they told me the most dreaded news of all---THIS COULD GO ON FOR 2-3 MONTHS!!!
This disease seems to ebb and flow. He seems better only to catch a small cold and have a set back. When he gets too active or mad, he has coughing fits. I think the most frustrating part is that he tends to puke with the bad spells. Because he's just trying to focus on getting his breath back, he's not too concerned about where he pukes. That leads to a lot of clean up on my part. Sigh. He's been sleeping on a makeshift "dog bed" next to my bed on the floor. I was popping up way too much to make sure he was still breathing after the spells, so it's a lot easier on all of us if I can just roll over and look down to see he's still breathing. We're looking forward to the day soon when he's back in his own bed!
Last week the boys started at their new daycare. It was horrible telling Kari that he has these horrible coughing spells BUT HE'S NOT CONTAGIOUS! She's been a real trooper and helps him through the spells and has gotten him to puke in the bucket more regularly! Now that he's over his latest cold, I do really think he's on the mend---ever so slowly.
