Still Sick

Quick update: Baby is STILL sick.  Significantly.  There have been a few up and downs over the last couple of days.  Her croup came back when the long lasting steroid wore off on Thursday.  I took her back to the doctor because we just can't break this fever and her breathing was still labored... they checked for pneumonia and said to go home and monitor her breathing and come back on Saturday AM if she still hadn't broken her fever.  Thursday night her breathing became fairly restricted, I remembered we had a leftover dose of Prednisone, so we gave her that which helped a lot and we managed to avoid the ER.  At that point I was still extremely hopeful that we were so close to the end of it.  Friday her fever broke and stayed that way for about 8 hours then came back (whoa, that was depressing... and distressing). We've been battling the fever ever since. I called the doctor this morning, as instructed, thinking they'd send us in for more x-rays and blood work, but someone else was on call and they dismissed the fever (?) and told us to come in on Monday.  That will be day 10.  We're getting frustrated with every doctor giving us vastly different instructions... and don't really know what we should do anymore.  Her breathing is okay tonight (so far), but her fever just took another swift uptick.  I don't know.  They still haven't given her any kind of blood test to rule out an infection of some sort and I'm really hoping that happens on Monday. I haven't had much more than 3 hours of sleep a night for the last 8 days, dealing with her coughing/breathing and monitoring her fever.  I'm exhausted.  And I'm still sick with the flu (I just can't seem to quit it, myself... something about the no sleep is probably not helping).

That's all.

Things I've Been Thinking About

How thankful that I am raising my children in these times.  100 years ago, I'm not sure what would have or could have been done for Baby.

But, also, morbidly, and somewhat disconcertingly, as Baby just cannot get over this... things have been bad (very bad) all week.... I am very aware that children still do die from complications of the flu every year in the US.  This isn't a cold, and it isn't a joke.

Baby has been back and forth with the doctors all week.  We just have not been able to break her fever.  They are watching for pneumonia.  The steroids they gave at the hospital on Monday night, wore off yesterday and her croup has come back.  Thankfully, I had a leftover dose from the initial doctor's appointment Monday morning, and I gave her that last night and she had enough improvement that she made it through the night with going back tot he ER.  Her fever broke in night, and I'm hoping it doesn't return... or if it does... that this is a sign that we might be nearing the end of this.  (Please)

This has been a long, scary, worrisome week.

We have been given a  24 hour limit, if she hasn't improved she'll go back to the hospital for more testing.

P.S. We did not give her the flu vaccine this year (we did last year).  I know that it is not a guarantee, but we will be sure that the girls get it every year after this.

There Was A Snow Storm, I Had The Flu... and then Baby's Body Tried To Kill Her

So within 36 hours of Baby's drawings (post below) she looked like this:

I mean, Jesus H. Christ, things got bad for her extremely quickly.  She seemed to have the beginnings of a cold on Saturday night and a low fever.  Same on Sunday.  I was very sick over the weekend, so this wasn't terribly alarming.  1 AM Monday morning she came running into our room not able to breathe with tears streaming down her face, she had nearly lost her voice.  I wanted to take her to the ER but Mr F thought I was overreacting (he'll probably try to deny it).  We did calm her down, gave her some Motrin, and got her to sit up in bed for awhile, she drank some water and she seemed to be doing a little better.  She woke up again at 7 AM with a repeat of the 1 AM episode.  I gave her some more Motrin (still just running a low fever) and called the doctor because while it seemed like a bad cold or the flu she'd never had trouble breathing before, and it was very concerning.  They saw us at 9:45.  By then her fever had spiked up despite the Motrin.  The Dr felt she was right on the edge of needing to go to the ER, but thought it was pneumonia and sent us home with a prescription for antibiotics and a steroid to use before bed.

By the time we got to the pharmacy she looked like she does in the above photo.  That looks BAD, people.  I really wanted to go to the ER and wished we'd just been sent from the Dr.  But I thought, we'll get the antibiotics and she'll be better in 24 hours.... her fever is just spiking.  I gave her some Tylenol while we waited for her prescriptions since the Motrin wasn't working.... I thought if I could break her fever she'd be doing better.

And we went home, and she ate, but her breathing was still so labored and she could barely speak.  I gave a steam treatment, no improvement.  Then I just felt it was bad.  Her breath rate was right around 40 breaths/minute (which the Dr said was the limit) and there was a lot of tugging at her collar bone and around her ribs, and loud wheezing.  The tylenol had had an hour to kick in, her fever was down... but her breathing was not any better.  I called the Dr and they said to give her the steroids and take her outside and call back in 15 minutes.  I gave her the steroids and put her in the car for the ER.  As soon as I gave her the steroids she seemed worse than before... she could barely breathe.  I knew it would take me about 15 minutes to get there and I'd rather be at the ER if it didn't work.  Well, it didn't work.  The drive over there was just about the worst experience of my life.  I kept yelling at her to stay awake because she was nodding off and her face was turning bluish.  NIGHTMARE.  

(Keep in mind it was also during a snow storm... of course!)

We got there in time... yowza... that was really stressful.  I mean, horrible.  I haven't had anything like that happen since Kid and her seizures.  Her fever had spiked up to 103.9 despite the additional Tylenol.  They re-dosed with Motrin and that still didn't work.  So they re-dosed with Tylenol.  Her heart rate was through the roof due to the fever.  She got chest and throat x-rays and she had no pneumonia.  They determined that she has Croup and the flu (which I also have... making all this extra fun for me).  She had a couple of breathing treatments and another steroid (long lasting) and then an epinephrine nebulizer (which was terrible).  And now she is doing MUCH better.  I kind of hoped we'd stay over night, because having all the hook-ups monitoring her made me feel better... but the steroid and epinephrine seem to have helped.  Her fever is down today, her voice is still hoarse but MUCH better (she could barely say one word yesterday), and she is now coughing a productive sounding cough.  Her breathing rate is less than half what it was yesterday.