Pneumonia Part I - November 9th

Okay everyone is asking WHY John was in the hospital so hear is Part One of our Pneumonia saga.
Four weeks ago our kids were sick, Paige, then Syd, then Kate and last but not least me. You know a virus, achy, tired, sore throat, etc. I took us all in to check for strep throat and our cultures came back negative. I was was busy treating the symptoms and we were getting better. Then John came down with it on Wednesday November 5th. He actually left work EARLY and he took a night off on Thursday to recuperate. We put him on a steroid burst since this bug was making him feel like he was having trouble breathing.Sunday morning he was feeling better but stayed home from church to rest. Later that night he spiked a fever, 102.5 and was struggling to breath. He wanted to go into the doctors on Monday but I chose a different course of action.

Which is why two weeks ago at this moment I was sitting with John in the Emergency room at The Toledo Hospital. We were there for 30 minutes before being seen. Which is not a bad wait time but is super scary when you are watching your best friend struggle to breath. I had only seen him like this when we moved into our apartment 14 1/2 years ago, our house 13 1/2 years ago and the first and last time he helped move a family at church into a new home 10 years ago.... all three time required ER visits for asthma attacks due to dust stirred up by moving.
They put John on rebreather mask to help him get more oxygen and gave him SIX steroid treatments. I heard the respiratory therapist express concern after being told to administer two more steroid treatments, "Doesn't the doctor know that I already gave him three." From the another room the doctor replied, "Yes, now give him two more." She went on to administer a third. They admitted him after being in the ER for only 40 minutes. John was there for four hours. We had to wait for a room the hospital was packed. They found us a room on the fourth floor (room number 1, keep track there are more) and John was the in transit. Mason our transport specialist, (Okay I made that title up) was instrumental in making sure that the nurses assistant actually plugged John into the wall oxygen. He did have to tell her twice, she seemed new and was more worried about taking his vitals. Then Mason took care of it himself. He also went out to make sure our RN was on the way in, which she was. When the RN came into the room and saw John on the rebreather mask she looked a little surprised. Her name was Vicki and she was amazing. She had respiratory down in John's room within five minutes. Then respiratory therapist called the head respiratory therapist who called our family doctors again and within a half an hour John was in ICU. I was so worried when we went to the fourth floor. I discovered later that I should be. Patients in rebreather masks shouldn't be out on the regular floor. At two a.m. ICU got busy working on John. There really wasn't much more to be done except for give him forced oxygen through a BiPAP machine. He was struggling all night. If he had gotten any worse they would have put him on a ventilator. Ventilator is not a word I wanted to hear and I felt a little panicky. I cried a few tears then...I don't like to watch anyone suffer and John wasn't getting any real rest either. Katie was his first ICU nurse and she told me it was okay to leave for a couple of hours to get everything set up for my girls. I told her my biggest fear was that John's heart would give out since he was working so hard to breath. She said he's so young that won't happen and promised to be right outside his door while I was gone. I finally had to go home to get the girls ready for school. My nighttime rescuers were first Katie Miller 8pm to 10:30, then Lisa Miller 10:30 to 12:30(she had to work at five a.m. or else she would have stayed the night,) and then my Mom who was chauffeur to my brother Jonathon who spent the rest of the night. I found out that night or really early Monday morning that they they had six other severe cases of pneumonia in the ER that night, all young otherwise healthy adults and three of them including John were admitted to ICU(which is room #2 if you're keeping count.) To be continued....