A bad POSITIVE..

Wow.. I can't believe it , a month has gone by like a flash of lightning. So many things has happened, new experiences good and bad..

Let me give a quick summary of what has happened since my last entry. That same evening, when Naufal woke from his sleep, his temperature was still high and his breathing was irregular, so we took him to the same clinic that he went to the previous week. The doctor was not sure why his temperature went back up and why he was wheezing, so he referred Naufal to the hospital. We waited another 2 hours to see our regular peadritician at Sime Darby Medical Center, Subang Jaya (previously known as SJMC). By the time we met her, she checked Naufal thoroughly. he suspected lung infection, so she prescribed the nebulizer to loosen the phlegm, and warded Naufal for further tests.

Naufal looking extremely exhausted

It was a horrible feeling for us, not knowing what your only child is suffering from and seeing his small tired body wheezing away. After the nebulizer in the treatment room, Naufal started to feel hungry, which is a good sign cause he has lost his appetite for some time, so we fed him the buns that was packed.
We had to wait quite sometime for the doctor to come back to us to insert the tubes on Naufal's arms. We were then wheeled to the ward where we spent the next 3 nights.

Naufal was on the nebulizers every 3 hours, water dripped through the tubes directly into his blood streams for the next 2 days, X-rays were taken to check for fluid in his lungs, antibiotics were injected into him, and several other medicines were pumped into his system ..

Just look at his hands, both of them are taped to a board which restricts his movement so that he doesn't pull the needle from his left hand.
Tok is always around to keep Naufal cheerful. At night his aunts and uncles would also come over for a visit, often with toys, which really put a smile on his face. Thanks all..Two of Naufal's favourite nurses checking up on him periodically. He wouldn't let them leave him sometimes, so the nurses had to make an extended visit and Naufal would chat away.. charming them with his smiles.

After all the test results were out the doctor informed us that there was no lung infection, but he had Chronic Bronchitis. I googled it up (like you would at times like this) and here is what I found out about it. Chronic bronchitis is an ongoing inflammation of the airways in the lungs. The inflammation causes mucus to form in the lungs which makes it hard to get air in and out of the lungs. This can seriously affect your ability to breath and can give you a tight feeling in the chest. The main difference between bronchitis and chronic bronchitis is that chronic means it last a long time. Commonly affecting smokers, but in children it can be caused by dusts and other things. The common symptoms for chronic bronchitis are trouble breathing, tightness in the chest and coughing up mucus.

When I back to the office, everyone was asking about how my son was doing. Most were surprised when I mentioned chronic bronchitis but a few had their own share of tales to share. One had both of her daughters also suffering from it currently and another friend was a sufferer during her childhood. She mentioned that chronic bronchitis could lead to pneumonia, and she used to get attacks often as a child. In her teens, the symptoms just vanished and she no longer suffered from the illness.

Since then, Naufal has been the regular cheerful, healthy boy. Suddenly last Tuesday his school teacher called me at 5.30pm telling me that Naufal started to have fever at about 4.30 that day and they are asking me if I would allow them to start giving him medicine. As I was already 10 minits away from picking him up, I told him that I would take him home. He had some fever medicine left from his last visit to the hospital so I gave it to him and his fever seems to get better.. The next two days his temperature was still quite high and I sent him to his grandma's to recover while I am away at work. It seemed like a normal fever and coughing. But on Friday morning he started vomiting mucus while he was sleeping. So I decided to take him to the children's clinic.

It was already his 4th day sick and his temperature has rose to 39.1 degC. The coughing has paired with running nose. The doctor was going to start him on antibiotics, but at the same time he also wrote a referral note to the hospital emergency room to check for the influenza virus. I was already scared at the thought of it, but was sure that I needed to get Naufal checked just in case. So we headed to SDMC SJ again and met with the peaditrician. Naufal's high temperature and his coughing, plus his past medical record suggested possible lung infection. So again we were warded for further tests.

That same day, the nurses took a swab from Naufal's nose to test for influenza. The nurses told me that the results would be available within two hours. However after waiting more than 2 hours we still didn't get any results, so I asked the nurses to check and inform me what the outcome was. We were in great shocked to hear that the influenza A test results were POSITIVE!!!

We were moved to the quarantine room immediately and once everything was settled, I just cried and cried.. my thoughts were already at the worst case scenario.. I can't imagine life without my son. He is the apple of our eyes, our everything! Later the nurse came in and explained that although Naufal is influenza A positive, he isn't necessarily H1N1 positive. Norman calmed me down too, things might not be as bad as it sounds. We will get through this and Naufal will get better.. That night itself, Naufal's Tamiflu treatment started.

The next day, Naufal's temperature had gone down and he seems to be recovering but his cough is still quite bad. We were later told that he had a lung infection (pneumonia) based on his X-ray results. We continued praying for him..

All the weekend plans had to be cancelled, we are under quarantine during our stay in the hospital and also another week once we return. Please pray for our little boy :) insyaAllah he will be well..