I had hoped to watch the results on Election Day night. This year held the same excitement for me as the first one I was able to vote in. I remember sitting in Best Friend’s dorm room with several other friends, that night in 1992, excitedly watching the results come in. This time Hubby called me with the preliminary results that Obama had won. I am thrilled and hopeful he will get our economy slowly back on track, among other issues.

Instead of kicking back on the couch in front of the TV with Hubby, I was at the ER with Bean. During the previous week, one of the other babies came into daycare on nebulizer treatments. My RSV radar buzzed. Bean came down with a cold over the weekend and my radar was still beeping away. By Tuesday, he was wheezing and Hubby trucked him off to see the pediatrician. He came back with a positive RSV test and was sent home on Albuterol treatments (which, unsurprisingly, did little for him). When I got home from work Tuesday night, he was wheezing, retracting, and breathing very rapidly (80 breaths/minute). The on-call nurse listened over the phone and told us to go to the hospital. I packed up Bean and the breastpump and off we were. It’s amazing how fast they get the little ones in. I barely sat down after checking in when they called us to triage and immediately took us into the Peds ER section. He had two more breathing treatments, a dose of a steroid, and was still wheezy. He fell asleep in my arms after the second treatment and the TV remote was across the room, so I didn’t see any of the election coverage until well into the night, shortly before Obama was declared our president-elect... that was after I was able to get Bean to sleep in the crib and tiptoed over to the remote.

Bean was admitted around midnight. The poor guy was exhausted. He was so sweet, though. He managed to smile and flirt with the nurses while they changed him into a baby-sized gown (yes, a miniature version of an adult hospital gown.) He ended up staying 2 nights. His 02 saturation was great while he was awake, but repeatedly dipped into the upper 80s while he slept. The monitor’s alarm was off and on all night. By the second night he was much better, with lows in the low-mid 90s.

The Peds unit was beautiful. I was able to sleep in the room with him. I stayed both nights and Hubby relieved me during the day in between. Peanut was great through the whole thing, too. He got a little cranky with me during the day when I was home with him (he missed Daddy) but we played at the park and took a long nap before returning to the hospital to eat supper with Hubby. He was sad to go home again with only Hubby, but they said a prayer for Bean which seemed to help.

Bean is still coughing and snotting, but not at all like a week ago. RSV is some nasty shit.