Somehow, we ran out of Albuterol yesterday and didn’t realize it.

Around 11:00pm, I had finished up work and was getting ready to go to bed, only to find Grant in my bed. Wheezing. Badly. I went to get his nebulizer (we call it a woo-woo, like a train, but that’s not important to this story whatsoever) and discovered the awful lack of medicine. So I packed him up and off we went to the ER.

First, we got a private room in the ER. That part was boss. Second, it was incredibly quiet, so we got lots of attention — people can’t help but love Grant. Third, we were in and out in two hours or so. We got home around 1:30am.

Grant got oxygen first. He also had a chest x-ray, a rapid strep test, an RSV test, two rounds of nebulizer, and oral steroids. He didn’t have pneumonia, strep, RSV, or anything else worrying. He had a bad cough (leftover from a cold), restrictive airway disease (aka baby asthma), and was “a little tachycardic.”

As his breathing loosened up, his spirits correspondingly rose. He got one of those hospital single servings of apple juice and was very taken with that. He asked if we could get them for home (no we can’t!). He pretended there were bananas hidden all over the room and we guessed where they were. We sang songs and called each other silly. We laughed.

He had three nodes attached to his chest to track his heart, a finger monitor for his pulse ox, and a bracelet. He brought his bracelet home for dad. He asked me to interpret the monitor many many times. After getting the strep test (swab the back of the throat), he told me through his tears “I still love you mom,” which is grand because I didn’t administer the test.

He asked for Stitch so he could cuddle him. He asked if we could go to sleep (I said yes, but then he changed his mind). We waited to see how his pulse ox would do off the oxygen. We skipped out of the ER (after initially leaving then returning because I got lost in the hallway — I was tired).

When we got home he needed me to sit with him for about 40 minutes. We were both tired but Albuterol raises his heart rate, and he had back-to-back treatments, so settling ended up being hard, even at 2am.

Today he stayed home from daycare. He wasn’t ready to wake up for one thing. But for another, his breathing was still labored. After getting the twins ready and dropping them off, I picked up his prescriptions and came home and started administrating. I passed it off to Bob because I needed to get back into work.

After work today, he begged me to sit with him and watch Cars (his all-time favorite movie). So we cuddled and watched until it was time for me to go get the twins. Once they were home, he wanted to go to bed, so we got him up to his room, gave him his oral steroids, and got him Motrin, and started him on his nebulizer (all of which I then handed off to Bob, so I could feed the twins.)

Tomorrow’s a new day.