It all started out so well

 

Last Saturday, Iain had taken the boys on the cub scout camping trip and Claire was at my mom’s and sister’s.  I had the whole house to myself for 24 hours plus.  Saturday was so wonderful.  I watched PBS cooking shows, took a three hour nap, then went to dinner with a great friend.   During dinner, my sister called to tell me Claire was coughing.  We discussed it, I told her to give her more Benadryl and see how it went.  A few hours later I got another call that she was still coughing…we discussed me going out there but hoped she would finally fall asleep.  I went to bed, and wondered.  The next morning I found out the night did not go so well but we still thought it was just a terrible allergic reaction.  I ended up going to get her around noon, and by the time we got back the boys and Iain were home too.  We went to Duncan’s baseball game and she seemed better…rolled around in the grass, ran around.  Came home and put her to bed and things kind of went downhill from there.  It was a really bad night so the next day I took her to the pulmonologist.

We did four breathing treatments and in the end were sent to the ER.  Her saturation would not come up.  Did a strep test.  Positive.  Oh, and I had the boys with me. Wheee!

At the ER, they put her on a constant breathing treatment.  As in never-ending.  Of Albuterol.  Oh my sweet Jesus.

ER doc decided to admit her pretty quickly.  Got her IV in without much trauma (see last hospital visit post…egad).  Iain finally took the boys home, my niece and her husband brought me something to eat and we got in a room by about 9:30.  At this point, I hoped we would go home the next day.  In the end, we were in the hospital five days.  Status asthmaticus, pneumonia and strep throat.  So much medication I can’t keep track.  Sleeping on the Bed of Pain.  My hips will never be the same.

We are going to have to manage her very carefully at this point and I think an allergist is our next stop.  Seems keeping the allergies in check might keep the asthma in check.

It wasn’t all bad spending so much time with her but it would have been more fun doing it at Disney Land.

Thanks to wonderful friends and family, every once in a while I got a break and left to grab a bite to eat or to see the boys.  We missed Claire and Finn’s 4th birthday, and that made me super sad. 

But in the end we got to take our girl home.  Which is more than a lot of those families can say.

And she got to paint, and got stuffed animals from nurses, and kind of had the run of the place once she was off the constant breathing treatment stuff and her IV came out…about Wednesday night.

And gratefully, Friday afternoon, around 3:00…we got to go home.  Thanks be to God…and the doctors and nurses. 

And everyone is happy about that!