Notes from Sickland

Well, it's been a long couple of days. When I took Rachel to her pediatrician on Friday, things weren't too bad, but I recognized the wheezing and rattling sounds w/ the persistent cough well enough to know that I needed to get her to the pediatrician. So, she went back on her inhaler, and got amoxicillin for her ear infection, along w/ a steroid to help w/ the inflammation of her lungs. Ben and I have been in nose cleanup mode ever since. We even developed a code name for her runny nose. On Saturday, after one of her many forceful sneezes, I asked Ben if she had any snot running out her nose, and his reply was, "Well, it's certainly not chocolate!" It's one of the many, many ways my husband makes me laugh. So, the "chocolate" had to wait a minute while we both laughed at his ridiculous response (as many are - lol), but we now call anything running out of her nose "chocolate." Who, knows, maybe we'll throw in responses like, "Cleanup requested on aisle 3. Chocolate has been spilled. I repeat, chocolate has been spilled." You gotta keep laughing, and my husband definitely helps me do that!

About a month or so ago, when she had all of these same symptoms, I mistakenly told the doctor that she used a nebulizer instead of a spacer to take her albuterol. So, he prescribed albuterol using a nebulizer. On Friday, I had every intention of donating all of her albuterol for a nebulizer to her pediatrician's office since she only had an inhaler, and the medication was going to go to waste. Thankfully, her pediatrician considered it, but then told me to hang onto it just in case we have to step up her treatments - this way we already have it and just need to get the nebulizer, which he said that the insurance will cover.

So, I only went into work for 4 hours yesterday morning. When I got home, Rachel was very listless, and she was taking very quick, shallow breaths - to the point of having a hard time breathing. Talk about stress - breathing is central to life and it's very overwhelming to recognize this when it's your child and you realize you are limited in what you can do. My stress level began to increase when the doctor's office's phone lines were incredibly problematic - busy signals until I finally reached their answering service. I explained the issue as best I could to an answering service, and they told me that they were faxing the messages and the nurses were only checking the messages intermittently, so if I didn't hear back from someone w/in an HOUR, call back. Ok...keep calm, Jill. God definitely spoke to me at this point by helping me to realize that only He is the Ultimate Healer, and her life is in His hands - not the response time of her doctor's office. I debated taking her to the ER, but who knows how long it would take for her to see someone, me to fill out forms and fill them in on everything, and it wasn't escalated enough to warrant an ER trip. Thankfully, a nurse called back in less than an hour (which was good b/c given their phone issues, I'm not sure how I would have called back), and got us into see her pediatrician.

So, after responding positively to a nebulizer treatment (much more response than the inhaler), we picked up a handy dandy nebulizer yesterday at the pediatrician's office. Rachel is just about as tickled w/ the nebulizer as she was with the spacer. I had the bright idea to let her rot her brain in front of the TV w/ each treatment - it has helped immensely! For once, I can truly appreciate the Disney channel - lol. At any rate, her breathing is improving and her cough is still persistent but not to the point of gagging every time. W/ the help of a friend this AM, I'm hoping to explore why she seems to be a target for respiratory viruses - especially since for Rachel, any respiratory virus seems to cause what seems like asthma to rear its ugly head. So, any advice on how to look into this is very much appreciated. Especially since her pediatrician said in the event of an emergency, I should give her the inhaler every 20 minutes while en route to the ER. Of course, he followed it up w/ saying "not to scare you or anything." Right.

I was happy earlier b/c it looked like Rachel was getting better when she was in her PacNPlay while I got breakfast and lunch - she was making laughing noises. She has been so clingy and sad these past 2-3 days, and it breaks my heart. So, when I saw her wanting to stand and looking like she was having a good time, I went and got the camera. However, here's her response to the camera (Yes, I immediately picked her up after I took the sad picture!). I guess she didn't want anyone to know, except for me that she was feeling every so slightly better!

But, she wasn't so traumatized by the camera later when I brought her lovey and her new favorite: Cheer Bear (how fitting). Rachel loves her Care Bear that her cousin DaniRae got her - she goes to sleep w/ Cheer Bear in one arm and Lovey in the other arm. So sweet. She then took Lovey and Cheer Bear across the room to try to beat on her new nebulizer and figure out how to take it apart.