Is Cold Season Over Yet?

It's barely December and James has already made 5 ER trips this cold season and been admitted each time. First thing this morning was our most recent trip to the ER. After a couple of different ambulance rides and one helicopter (his 3rd helicopter trip of the year), James is now in the PICU at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh once again. James has been fighting a cold now for over a week.

Last Wednesday (the day before Thanksgiving), we took James to the ER because he was retracting and working hard to breathe. They kept him overnight for observation, but was able to come home on Thanksgiving. He seemed to be doing better and was coughing up a lot of mucus but keeping food down. Then early Monday morning his breathing became really labored again, he was unable to work up any mucus, and James turned dusky, so we took him back to the local ER. He was transferred to Children's where they monitored him for a couple days, but there wasn't much they could do for him since it was a virus and sent us home on Wednesday. We slept well that night but woke up rough Thursday and clung to me all day. He slept well again last night though so I was hopeful that he was healing in his sleep. However, this morning he awoke struggling to breathe again and ended up getting mucus caught in his airway so the ambulance was called and they brought him in.

The whole situation is very frustrating. Dave, Andrew, and I don't even have the sniffles so we are nervous that there is something else going on besides a common cold. The doctors have run all kinds of tests and seem to think it's just a virus (but not RSV). Today there are more tests and still no new ideas. However, we probably will be taking James to see a few more specialists in the next month to make sure there's not more going on (allergies?, asthma?, ???)

Please pray for James' health, for God to give Dave and I the strength to keep going, and for Andrew to stay healthy!