The Highs and Lows

Let me start with the most exciting news of all!! My little brother Andrew got his mission call to

Called to Serve in the Guatemala Quetzaltenango Mission!! I cant believe he is old enough to go on a mission! He got his papers on Friday, and immediately invited his friends over to open it with them. He got a little emotional as he started reading, but since he had his friends over he worked through it. :) Afterwards his friends stuck around and were asking a TON of questions. He only had 4 friends over that were LDS, so it was an awesome missionary experience. We (his family) left and let these boys share with their friends what a mission was, why they do it. Eric and I were both really impressed by their answers to the questions for their friends. They even called and facetimed their friends that weren't able to go. They are all really excited for Andrew. He is going to be an awesome missionary!

So this is where the day took a turn. We all thought it was going to be a great weekend, General Conference was on and we could all listen and relax. Go out for my Birthday dinner. Sadly none of that happened. Dad started complaining about chest pain Friday after Andrew opened his papers. He went to bed hoping it would all work itself out in the morning. Unfortunately once they listened to Elder Hollands talk Saturday morning they knew he needed to go to the ER, because something wasn't right. He was immediately admitted for Blood Clots in both of his lungs. They put him on medicine to help his pain and also to try and thin his blood so the blood clots would go away. He stayed 2 nights in the hospital and is still is in a lot of pain. Mom and Dad spent the weekend at Swedish Hospital. Dad was released this afternoon and is still tired and in some pain but on the up and up.

Only smile all morning

Q took his turn for the worse on Saturday night. Q had a runny nose and a cough for a few days, but Saturday night he was up coughing and struggling to breathe most of the night. I only got an hour of sleep because he was so upset and tired. Mom was an angel and helped, even though she had spent the entire day in the hospital with Dad. In the morning she gave him a bottle and he started coughing and threw it all up. He also was visiably trying to breath and was grunting, and making wierd noises to try and breathe. We took him to the same hospital my dad was at, that way once he was treated we could go visit my Dad. They took a XRay and listened to him and said it was just congestion and sent us on our way. He was still upset breathing and coughing. Both Eric and I didn't feel comfortable with that diagnosis but didn't know what else to do. So we took him home to try and get him to rest. He wouldn't take a nap and was awful. Around 5 we were going to head back to our place so i called our Primary Doctor to make an appointment for Monday or to see if their urgent care was open on Sunday. The doctor listened to Q through the phone and told us to take him to the ER. So we left and headed to Children's hospital since it is like 2 minutes away from our apartment.

Breathing Treatment

Once we got to Children's the nurse got us in immediately, and told us that on a score from 1 to 12 Q's breathing was at an 11. Which meant REALLY bad. So they got him started on breathing treatments, and said we would be here for a few hours waiting to see if the treatment worked, if not, which they suspected, we would do another round of treatments. The first breathing treatment got him down to a 7 which was great, so they gave the 2nd round of breathing treatments. That's when the problems started. About 30 minutes after the treatment was done Q's heart rate was at like 290. We thought it was wrong, because his cords kept falling off because he kept moving and playing. We tried to get them back on, but it was still super high, so we got the nurse to come in and fix it. She thought the monitor was wrong as well, but after getting it fixed and then listening to his heart she knew it was correct. She called the Doctor right away and 2 minutes later we had at least 10 people huddled outside his door watching the monitor and running around. Then all of a sudden they all came into the room and the craziness started. I was holding Q as they tried to put an IV in him, and then put Ice on his face to see if they could natuarally lower his heart rate. At this point his heart is going 310 beats per minute. They tried it twice and it didn't work, so they prepped a shot and injected it into his IV. As soon as the shot went in his heart was down to 180. They kept monitoring him but felt this episode was over. They had hooked his heart up to an EKG so they could monitor his heart before, during and after the entire process. After everyone left, Q was fast asleep. I think his fast heart beat was keeping him awake. A few minutes later the head ER Doctor came in and told us what happened. Q had SVT which is Supra Ventricular Tachycardia, meaning that part of his heart was telling his entire heart to beat faster then it should. They were calling the Cardiologist to look at his EKG, but in the meantime they were going to switch his meds and then admit us to the Cardiology floor.

EKG minus all the cords.

This was at midnight. We had a different breathing treatment that wasn't supposed to have the same effect of raising heartbeats. We finally got to our room at 2 am. His next treatment was at 4 am. He hates the breathing treatments and screams bloody murder. No much sleeping was happening.

In the morning they came in and said the cardiologists were monitoring his heart and if he gave the thumbs up we were able to go home. They said his breathing looked good, but that would need to keep giving him breathing treatments. We were finally released at 4 PM. Mike and Sue met us at our apartment and took us to Dinner. We hadn't eaten since breakfast on Sunday.

The Doctors think his SVT was a one time problem, and it was induced by Albuterol. So they have added that to his list of allergies. They gave us a stethoscope so we can monitor his heartbeat from home. If it gets past 200 we are supposed to call our Primary Doctor or take him to the ER. If that happens they will do a full workup on his heart and find out whats going on. We are all praying this was a one time thing. We are now just taking it easy at home and waiting for his chest cold to go away. We appreciate all our friends and family that have been praying for us this weekend!