Another Life Down

If I were a cat I would now only have 6 of my 9 lives left. The babies are going to be the death of me. To any of you that don't know (that is if anyone is still checking my blog since I have been absent) Bailey was life flighted to Children's Hospital . Another life down for me...
What happened:
On Wednesday April 13 I took both babies in for ear infections and a cold. Bailey was also running a fever. The big kids had brought yet another cold home from school. We went home with antibiotics in hand hoping this would be over quickly. I called the doctor's office back the next day because Bailey's fever was not going down with Tylenol and Motrin. They said fevers of 101-102 were normal till the antibiotics kicked in. I call back again the next day and asked the nurse if she should not be at least a little better by now. She said give it another 12-24 hours. BIG MISTAKE!

At 5 AM on Saturday morning her fever was 103.2. We took her into the doctor's office. They did a chest xray, and they said it looked like she had a little pneumonia. They also did a pulse ox check and the highest oxygen saturation they could get was in the 70's. No one believed it. We got a shot of rocephin and was sent home. I had a pulse ox machine at home so I knew I could check her at home. I had to charge the machine before it would work so we were unable to check her until 6 PM. We were shocked with the number we got. I called the doctor, and I don't think he believed it. She did not look like a child that was in distress. I told him we were going to take her up to the hospital to my office and check it there. It was 63% (normal for her is 96-99%) and when we blew oxygen in her face it went up to 89%. We called the doctor back and he arranged for us to go to Children's. Unfortunately we had to go through the ER first. She spent 7.5 hours in the ER before she was flown to Children's.

She spent 4 days in the specialty care unit. On Sunday the doctors were talking about all kind of things that could be affecting her oxygen and none of it gave me warm fuzzies. Lee started calling me "the runner" because every time something bad was happening I would leave. I guess I deal with stress by running away from it. LOL On Monday she had a virus panel done and the culprit was found. She had the metapneumovirus. It is in the same family as RSV. The doctor came in that evening and said it explained why she was so sick. One doctor said this virus was RSV on speed. So to all the preemie moms there is something worse than RSV. Bailey finally woke up on Tuesday afternoon. She had literally been sleeping since Thursday afternoon and it was good to finally see her awake and playing.

By Wednesday night we were only wearing oxygen at night. On Saturday I talked to one of the nurses and she said she had seen some kids stay on the unit 2 weeks just on oxygen at night. I got upset and requested to talk to the doctor. The only thing Bailey was receiving that was not her norm was oxygen. I told the doctor I wanted to go home with oxygen, She agreed that could happen since I was a respiratory therapist. She said she would have to wait till the weekend was over.

Monday was crazy. They got pulmonary doctors involved, and they started talking about us being there till Friday. I told them I was going home. I might have gotten a little crazy eyed. They finally saw it my way, and we got home after 10 PM that night.

Oh I will one day post pictures from Walt Disney. We also had a late first birthday the weekend before Bailey went into the hospital. I have pictures somewhere. I just need to find my camera......