Worried about Finlay again (long)

[Guest guest]

Hi everyone

Its been a long week....

Finlay has been struggling to maintain his blood sugar levels within

normal range following a " severe hypoglycaemic epsiode " last week.

We have switched feeds from pediasure to vivonex (similar to pepti

jnr) and that seems to sustain him for longer so the blood sugars are

starting to plateau at 3.7 (65) instead of 2.9 (47).

On Friday he started to go downhill - very pale, lethargic, floppy,

hot - just generally miserable....I wasn't sure if it was the new

feed, blood sugar problems or something else..so I paged our endo

(who I have been speaking to on a daily basis through all of this) he

suggested I bring Finlay in to see him - even although he was busy

with meetings and lectures that day.

By the time we got to hospital Finlay was really miserable nad

obvioulsy not well. Our Dr came down to see us just few minuite

after we arrived. He checked Finlay over very thoroughly - listened

to his chest very carefully and picked up a " dull " sound in his right

lung - he sent us for a chest xray which confirmed his suspicion of a

low grade pneumonia. Finlay was admitted for IV antibiotics for 24

hours. THe first 12 hours he seemed to get worse instead of better -

had a very high fever and quite laboured breathing - but then he

picked up and by the next morning was 100 times better. Its a

holiday weekend here so we were allowed to go home on oral

anitbiotics. Finlay is heaps better than he was - his blood sugars

seem to be a bit better but he is just complelty wiped out - pale and

tired wth dark shadows under his eyes.

Can anyone with experience witha child with chest issues tell me -

Is the pneumonia likely to recur

How long can it take for the child to recover once out of hospital

What are the signs I should be looking for

The drs could not tell me how Finlay got this infection. He did not

ahve a chest cough at all....so it was not secondary to a chesty

cold. Given all the reflux issues he had been having I think he has

apirated some food - but the house drs seemed to think that hte xray

was more in keeping with him having develpoed pneumonia secondary to

an upper respiratory virus

Either way I am pretty shaken by the whole thing. I am also very

grateful that we have such a wonderful Dr who got on to this early so

that it did not have the cahnce to develop further - I know that if I

had taken Finlay to our GP on Friday instead of to the hospital we

would have been sent home and told he was just coming down with a

virus.

Thanks for listening/reading and for understanding.....as I said we

have had quite a week.....

Best wishes to all

in New Zealand

Finlay nearly 4yrs old....11.5kgs, 91cms. RSS. G-tube