It was a rough week around here last week. Two weekends ago, Caroline started getting a cold. Sunday afternoon, she spiked a fever of 103.5, started coughing and was just generally unhappy. By Monday night, she was coughing so hard during the night that she couldn't sleep. Tuesday, I took her in to the doctor. He took about 30 seconds listening to her lungs and diagnosed her with pneumonia. He sent us straight to the hospital to get a chest X-Ray and then we went back to his office to go over the results with him. He showed us a very distinct area of fluid around a bronchiole in her left lung and a small amount in her right lung. We left with a prescription for antibiotics and cough medicine.
My mom had come over to keep Catherine while I took Caroline to the doctor, and when she got home, she mentioned that Catherine was coughing a little. I had noticed that she had a bit of a stuffy nose that morning but still seemed pretty happy. But, when I picked her up, she felt a little warm. Took her temp and it was 100.2-- low grade but still a fever. As the evening progressed, I noticed that her breathing sounded abnormal. I wasn't sure if it was just because she was mouth breathing due to a stuffy nose or if she was really having a hard time breathing. I called our dr's office and spoke to the nurse on call. I told her the situation and we went over a checklist of symptoms, and she told me that it just sounded like a cold but to watch her overnight. I was to call back if her breathing changed-- otherwise, to call the pediatrician in the morning. So, I took her in the next morning. She had an ear infection in the right ear and bronchiolitis, inflammation of the small airways in the lungs, caused by a virus. He said any virus that can cause a cold in adults can cause bronchiolitis in babies. They tested her for RSV, but it was negative. She got a breathing treatment to help with the wheezing and we were sent home with a nebulizer to do breathing treatments 3-4 times per day along with a antibiotic for the ear infection.
She woke up the next morning seeming to feel OK. Her temp. was 100.7 and still stuffy and not breathing completely normally, but not worse than the previous day. By mid-afternoon, her breathing was becoming much faster (2-3 times the normal rate )and more labored and she sounded crackly and had a deep, hard productive cough. I called our peds office and they said to bring her in that evening. The doc listened to her lungs, did a breathing treatment, listened to her breathing again and said we needed to get a chest X-Ray. She couldn't tell if it was pneumonia for sure. At the last minute, she decided to get a blood count "just to be sure her white blood cell count isn't high". Catherine's WBC count came back at 28,000. She then tells us that 30,000 means automatic admission to the hospital. At that point, we decide to admit Catherine to T.C. Thompson Children's Hospital and just get the chest X-Ray there. Before leaving, they gave Catherine oral steroids and an antibiotic injection. The chest X-Ray showed pneumonia, which was no huge surprise after the bloodwork results and we spent a very, very long night at the hospital. By morning, Catherine had improved quite a bit and our doctor called at lunch and said we could go home.
Caroline is doing great now. After a couple of days of antibiotics and a few good night's sleep thanks to the cough medicine, she was back to playing a feeling good. She still doesn't have a lot of stamina and we have not let her go back to school yet, but her energy (and appetite!!!) is improving every day.
Catherine is slowly getting better. We do breathing treatments every 4 hours around the clock and she is on oral antibiotics and steroids. Her breathing still is not completely back to normal and she continues to have a stuffy, runny nose and cough. Through the whole process, Catherine never lost her smiley disposition, but now we are really starting to see that she is feeling better. She will probably be a bit under the weather for a while longer and it may take weeks for her to completely kick the whole thing, according to the doctor. So, we are staying close to home and keeping it low-key so that she can get well and not catch any more bugs.
Both girls have a follow-up doctor's appointment on Thursday.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Catherine 5 months
Catherine is starting to roll to her tummy much more frequently and even enjoys playing there for a while now. Today, she actually lifted her bottom off the floor a little and moved her legs like she was trying to pull her knees under her-- some definite pre-crawling movements. She also started rice cereal mixed with breastmilk yesterday and did pretty well with it, despite the fact that she grabbed the spoon every bite and spilled more that she ate. Today, I made it a little thicker and she really seemed to like it. She even cried when she finished what I had mixed up, so I made her some more and she gobbled it right down too.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Trick or Treat 2009
Well, I managed to make it two years and two months before Caroline ate candy. Last night, she had her first Snickers, her first Peanut M&M's, her first 3 Muskateers and her first sugar high. She really loved the candy and had such a good time walking around our neighborhood eating her candy with one hand and carrying her pumpkin with the other. She was so cute saying "trick or treat" and "thank you" at every house. We did have to explain to her that she could not go into all the houses, however.
Poor Catherine had been running a little fever over the past two days, so she rested in the stroller while Caroline trick or treated. It's funny to think that next year, Catherine will be able to walk and trick or treat right alongside her sister.
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