The Second Attack

One Sunday afternoon, exactly two weeks before Miguel’s first birthday, we went to a nearby mall to buy a few items for the party. When we reached home several hours later, I noticed that Miguel had a fever. Late that evening I decided to give him paracetamol as his temp went up to 38.5degrees celsius. The following morning, his fever did not subside so I thought it better to bring him to the nearest pedia. Routine check was done and there was nothing found, so she just prescribed to continue giving paracetamol and Disudrin (which I thought weird since wala naman sipon si Miguel that time except when he cried, so why give Disudrin?)

On Tuesday, I brought him again to the same pedia since rashes started appearing and I noticed occasional coughing. A CBC was requested which returned normal results. In the afternoon, upon the advice of the elders, we brought him to a ‘manghihilot’, and of course, he was diagnosed as pilay since manghihilot nga ang tumingin e. )

That night he slept soundly. I almost turned into a believer of the manghihilot! LOL! Apparently, his fever went up again the following morning (Wed) so we decided to bring him to his real pedia na at Cardinal Santos who said it was German Measles as evidenced by rashes and on/off fever and that his cough is viral–an expected effect of German Measles. She prescribed paracetamol pa din and mucolytic and salbutamol for the cough. She said the rashes had to appear before the fever subsided and that she expected it to last until Friday.

On Thursday, his cough worsened. The entire day he vomitted everytime he coughed and it seemed all the milk he drank was also expelled. He lost a lot of weight too! I feared he might get dehydrated so I texted his pedia who recommended that he be hooked on an IV for hydration. She asked me to find a doctor in a nearby hospital who would agree to put him on an IV instead of us going to Cardinal Santos just for this purpose. Apparently, the pedia we consulted wanted to have a repeat CBC, a chest xray and a urinalysis as part of her management. This is exactly what Miguel’s pedia didn’t want to happen since he had just been checked and diagnosed for German Measles, there was no point in doing these tests. We left this pedia’s clinic and went to the pedia who first checked him on Monday. The hospital where she was connected agreed to put him on dextrose so he was hooked. Kawawang Miguel, na-IV na naman . It was already around 8pm so the pedia was no longer around to check Miguel, instead he was attended to by the resident doctor on duty.

The following morning I so wanted to be discharged as the hospital was super mega over yucky! You wouldn’t believe it was a legal hospital at all! The pedia went to check on Miguel and she insisted that I submit him for chest xray. I didn’t have a choice since Miguel was under her care. The official reading of the xray result was bilateral medial lung zone pneumonitis (almost but not quite pneumonia yata yun), so the pedia prescribed antibiotics.

All this time I was texting Miguel’s pedia at Cardinal about the happenings and she said there was no role for antibiotics. I believed her because I know my son didn’t have infection. But then again, I had no choice but to follow this pedia’s advice since he’s the one in charge of Miguel that time so I gave him antibiotics as soon as we were home.

After three doses of antibiotics, I didn’t see any improvement in Miguel’s condition and so we decided on Saturday to bring him to a pedia-pulmo (the same one we went to before who cleared him of primary complex) to get a confirmation reading of his chest xray. True enough, it wasn’t pneumonia at all but asthma! Goodness. I already noticed that the sound of his cough changed later that week but did not think he was having asthma attack again! So it was actually the viral cough that prompted his asthma. He prescribed prednisone and we were advised to come back on Tuesday for check up.

I know prednisone was supposed to work since Miguel already took this med after his first admission due to asthma attack few months back, however, the vomitting continued till the following day (Sunday), which prompted us to contact his pedia again who said he better be admitted at Cardinal Santos. And so in the afternoon of January 13, we went to Cardinal Santos and have him hooked for the third time on an IV. Kawawang kawawa .

The worst thing was, after the doctors in the ER put him on IV, we were told the hospital was fully booked and there was no room available! I was thinking we will be spending the night in the ER–great! Fortunately, after Nico made kulit at the admission, they were able to find a room for us–the one reserved daw for maternity patients–e wala pa naman manganganak bakit magrereserve, hmp!

We stayed there until Tuesday and those days witnessed a series of crying everytime some unfamiliar faces–those people in white and those in different colored uniforms–would come in our room either to check on the IV or to check on Miguel. He really was traumatized already.

Tuesday afternoon–four days before his birthday–we were discharged. His cheeks were beginning to look chubby again and his cough had subsided. He had to continue taking his medicine until Friday and he was expected to be back to his old jolly self on his birthday. And sure enough, he did.

Birthday kwento coming up next!