A mom of five is asking her fellow parents to let their sick kids stay at home after a recent outbreak of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infected three of her daughters and led to a scary hospitalization for one of them.
Carmen Bremiller, who hails from Barker, New York, in Broome County, has been caring for her sick daughters for several weeks and said that the road to full recovery is still ongoing.
The 27-year-old told Fox News Digital that all five of her kids: Sophia, 10; Ashlynn, 6; Caroline, 4; Ava, 3; and one-year-old Kinsley caught the common cold last September after they returned to in-person schooling for the first time since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
RSV strikes Bremiller's family
Bremiller said she kept her kids home for a week until they all seemed to recover, but they exhibited cold-like symptoms once more by early October. She noted that the symptoms included fevers, loss of appetite, and eye mucus.
Bremiller recalled calling their doctor's office and talking to the nurse. She wanted her children to be seen, but she was told they just had a cold and to treat it as such, so she did that. Three of Bremiller's daughters, who were all under five years old, had high fevers, and to ease their suffering and discomfort, she gave them over-the-counter pain relievers.
According to Bremiller, she contacted her kids' doctor's office again about her concerns because she felt the children were sick for an abnormally long period. She got the same response, though, as they told her once again that their symptoms were likely connected to her kids' earlier cold.
Bremiller said the local Head Start program where two of her kids were enrolled reportedly informed her around October 6 that there were confirmed cases of RSV, flu, pink eye, and croup in the area. She said three of her daughters were diagnosed with RSV after taking them to an urgent care for evaluation.
Kinsley still struggling with RSV
Bremiller said her two middle children became pretty sick but got over it on their own, and they are now doing much better. Unfortunately for the worried mom, that was not the case for her youngest daughter, who she said did not do so well with it.
Bremiller said that Kinsley, who is now one year old, experienced occasional fast breathing but did not appear to be in respiratory distress. However, things turned for the worse when she stopped drinking fluids completely.
Medical staff who examined Kinsley on October 12 found her oxygen levels low. The staff became concerned when the levels remained that way, even when the child was given an oxygen mask.
Bremiller said Kinsley was transferred via ambulance to a children's hospital in Buffalo. Emergency room staff determined from a chest X-ray that her kid had pneumonia, while her blood work confirmed that RSV was still present in her system.
