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.
