LITTLE ROCK, Ark — Amber Gross, a Maumelle mom, felt she was pretty strict about strangers coming up to touch her son, Kavanaugh.
"I've always been one of those moms that's like, 'Make sure to sanitize. Don't be kissing him," said Gross. "But my close family and friends, it was hard for me as a mom to be like, 'Don't touch him. Don't kiss him.' I don't want him to be sick, and it's inevitable he still got sick."
In mid-October, the beginning of the respiratory virus season, Kavanaugh got sick.
"He was coughing, a dry cough that turned into a wheeze, and then his nose was running a lot," said Gross. "I called and I was like, 'He needs to go to the doctor.'
They immediately took him in for x-rays, and put him on breathing treatments.
"I was just holding this child that you could tell was so, so sick," added Gross.
Doctors are warning that this virus season is a bad one.
"This has been a bad RSV season. We tend to see ups and downs in how severe or how many cases of RSV we see from year to year," said Dr. Robert Hopkins with UAMS. "Why this year is particularly worse than others maybe, we don't really have a good answer."
Gross said she is thankful her son has fully recovered. She will still be protective when it comes to people touching him.
"A lot of people go ahead and grab his hands anyway without asking and with him being so sick, I'm like, 'You didn't sit in those doctors offices," said Gross. "'You didn't have to pay all those doctors bills. Yeah, he's a cute baby, but please respect that I was the one that was there when he was sick.'"