Oh How Quickly It Turns

At ten this morning, my phone rang. On the other end was the nurse from Little Miss's preschool -- mind you, for the second day in a row calling. Yesterday, she wanted to know if she could put lotion on Little Miss's chapped hands.

Today, she wanted to know if I'd given Little Miss any cough medicine, as she was sent to the nurse's office for coughing and the nurse noticed she had a rapid heartbeat (I've since learned that I need to know how many beats that means). Fortunately, she had no fever, and the nurse didn't feel I needed to do anything at that point (read: don't leave my planned morning and pick her up from school).

When her bus pulled up, I noticed the girl in front sleeping and started to make a comment to the bus driver about other kids getting their naps on the bus but that Little Miss never falls asleep. I stopped when the bus driver showed me my sleeping girl. Hmm. I brought her inside to sit down for lunch, but she wanted no lunch and just wanted to go take her nap. Uh-oh.

A little before 2:30, she woke up whining that she didn't feel good. She never says she isn't feeling good. I gave her a hug and realized she was warm. Yep, fever of 102.2. And I noticed she was breathing rapidly and had some retracted breathing going on, too. I sighed and called the doctor who got me in at 3.

It's never a good sign when the doctor listen's to your child's chest for a loooong time. And then puts on the pulse-ox reader and sighs, saying, "That's what I was afraid of." Yes, we've been down this road before. It involved a trip to the ER at 5pm after an early afternoon doctor's appointment. Oh, and her fever was now 103.3, up over a degree in less than an hour.

He gave her a breathing treatment around 3:30, and yes, we have the nebulizer at home for future treatments. She responded well, and we decided not to send her to the hospital for a chest X-ray and monitoring. We went home with a prescription for Omnicef (since she's allergic to Amoxicillan) to treat what he strongly suspected was pneumonia.

By 5:20, she was back to the retracted and labored, fast breathing. And her fever was back at 103.7. I made the obligatory call to the doctor on call, already knowing what she was going to tell me.

I'm currently writing this from the ER room she's sitting in (isn't technology nice? The whole hospital here is wireless!) as she's being monitored. Her fever went up to 104.8 when they brought her into a room. Fortunately, her chest X-Ray was clear, but last time it was clear on Day One and mucky as all get out the next day. They took her oxygen level while we were waiting for a room to open up, and it was low enough that they put her on oxygen while we waited. Wheee!

As an aside, before you decide to go to an ER, check to see whether it's a full moon. Tonight is a full moon, in case you're wondering. And the place is packed. With lots of nut jobs (although folks who groaned ohhh nooooo when they saw us walk up to the only empty couch that happened to be somewhat in their vicinity, was that really necessary?). And little parent supervision.

Anyway, she has responded again somewhat to the second breathing treatment, and they haven't given her any steroids as yet -- although they just as well may have since she hasn't closed her eyes yet after she had her nose violently swabbed by a nurse as she was sound asleep. Oxygen level is at 94% which isn't great, and we can't get her pulse below about 160, so it's looking likely that she'll be admitted. That, by the way is down significantly from the 209 she spiked at while we were here. I'm already planning to spend the night here with her, poor kiddo. We'll know in an hour.

On the plus side, both the wee ones were scheduled to spend the night with my parents tonight because my husband has a Scholastic Bowl tournament tomorrow morning where he's leaving by 6:30 and won't be home until evening. And I have choir practice at 10am. And a cookie exchange I am (I mean, I was) hosting. So Mister Man is at my parents' house, and they are unaware of the recent change in plans. Shockingly, Little Miss completely understood that Mister Man was still spending the night at Grandma and Grandpa's house and she wasn't. Then again, that tells you how sick she is, doesn't it?

On the downside, I'm totally on my own tomorrow. I'm hoping that we're able to be released, but even if we are, I need to wake up every three hours to give her a breathing treatment round the clock for the next few days. And Monday going to school is looking less and less likely, which is a problem for me and work - home of thirteen percent cuts in my department on Thursday.

Murphy's Law I've become intimately reacquainted with: once you fall asleep, someone must bother you within two minutes of fall asleep, regardless of how long you were left alone before then. This has happened to us: before she went to see the triage nurse, when she had to get her chest X-ray, when they brought her back to her room, when they did her nose swab, and again when the doctor came to check on her levels just a few moments ago. Fortunately, Mommy rocks at getting her to sleep (Daddy failed miserably in his lone attempt, although it was entertaining for me to watch).

Oh, and today's afternoon plans of making next year's calendars for my family? And downloading the last month's pictures from my camera? And maybe trying to find a picture to send out with our Christmas cards? Yeah... those plans were sorta shot. Maybe I'll celebrate Groundhog Day instead of Christmas this year!



PS As of yesterday afternoon, Mister Man has also lost his only pair of winter boots (see Monday's post).