Sick babies, cozy cuddles, and worst case scenarios.

When I woke up yesterday, I was so excited it was Friday. As you may or may not know by now, Friday is the one day of the week that I don’t have any standing appointments. Often, I’ll schedule doctor appointments on Fridays, but not always.

My excitement for my “quieter than normal day” quickly faded.

As soon as I got home from dropping my oldest off at school, the baby started acting a little funny.

Usually, I play with him in my bed (it’s a safe, large space that he can play on and not hurt himself if/when he falls on his face. He has more freedom there than he does on the floor).

But yesterday, he didn’t want to play. Or chew on his toys. Or bite me. (Yes, I am still talking about a baby here. But I suppose he does have many puppy like characteristics.)

All he wanted to do was lay on me. And not move. And cuddle. At first, I wasn’t…worried? It was cute. And cozy.

But the longer it went on, the more concerned I got.

Within just a few minutes, it progressed to him being completely unable to keep his eyes open. Even if I was trying to talk or play or engage with him, he just couldn’t.

At that point, I messaged his doctor. I was trying not to over react…but my gut was screaming something was wrong.

(I had just messaged her the day before about quite a random topic…specifically…Atlas sucking on his arm so hard it literally caused a blister. She was stumped. Hence the first line.)

At that point, things started happening pretty quickly. He was basically completely unresponsive, his color was gone, and I was pretty terrified. At that point, I was halfway considering driving him to the ER myself.

Before they even messaged me back (and I knew they would be fast, I have an amazing relationship with them), the threw up all over me. Like. A lot. For a tiny little baby. And now I’m even more concerned. Because now, on top of EVERYTHING going on, I know he’s aspirated on vomit. I saw and heard it. Which could EASILY and quickly kill him, or lead to aspiration pneumonia…which would still also threaten him quite a bit.

So I get us cleaned up, (by some actual miracle, I stood up about 2.5 seconds before he threw up and it landed on the floor, not my bed. Small victories!) and race off to the doctor with him.

We’re in the room about 2 minutes after we check in, and our doctor comes in right after that. Again, I really do love them. They’ve always treated our family very well and taken their issues very seriously.

He started to perk up a bit by the time we got to the doctor. He was more awake and alert, and not just…completely unresponsive.

She really didn’t have much to offer as to what the FUCK just happened…but she did test for all the big stuff (rsv, flu and Covid) just to be safe. He was negative for all 3 (I knew he would be), but it was still a relief to know. Seeing as rsv hospitalized him for a week last year when he was 8 weeks old.

She was obviously concerned…but was comforted by the fact that he was, at this point, responsive. And not just completely lethargic.

What we think happened, and…again…we really don’t know…is that it’s possible his glucose dropped, dangerously low, and that’s why he was unresponsive. He’s been battling a super minor cold, but with kids with any kind of muscular dystrophy or myopathy…they don’t handle secretions well. It’s possible that he’s been aspirating his mucous, along with swallowing it (as opposed to coughing it up and out of the lungs like most people do) and all of that sitting in his stomach irritated it, and made him sick.

The 2 older boys have colds. Yeah, they’re snotty and gross…but shit.

If a COLD does this to him? You can see why I’m so paranoid and protective of him. It was truly terrifying.

It’s too soon to tell if what he aspirated yesterday will lead to pneumonia, or if anything is growing in his lungs.

He was still quite off today. But I know what to look for that are the red flags for going straight to the hospital. (And no one wants him there. We all want to keep his exposure to illness as low as possible.)

Yesterday was scary, and everything happened so freaking fast. I was on edge all day, he looked completely miserable, and I just held him all day long. Being paranoid over every breath.

I love him too much for anything horrible to happen. It just hurt my heart and scared the shit out of me. My husband too.

He’s stable now, and we’re hoping it stays that way.

But man was he a sensitive little soul today. You can tell he does not feel good at all…even though there’s no outward signs of anything being wrong.

A day in the life of special needs parenting.

It’s truly just ALWAYS something.

(Also, can we please talk about how fucking gorgeous he is…even under the most terrifying situations?)