...and the Rest of the Story

So...when we last left off, little one was sleeping after her breathing treatments. She slept through the night on Tuesday and happily went to pre-school on Wednesday. She was still a bit wheezy but seems less so. Her color does not seem right to me so am thinking she is still going to get a cold but we can deal with that. Then the phone call....the doctor read the X-ray from the night before. I was on another call when she called so she left a message to call her. I called her back but she did not answer. Then her husband, who I work with, stopped by my office and asked if I had talked to his wife (munchkin's pediatrician). I said that we had exchanged phone messages. He said, "You need to call her." Now I am getting worried. When I enquired about what was going on, he said that he did not know but knew that I needed to talk to his wife. I called her again. She says, you need to get little one to the emergency room as she has a blockage in her lung. Ahhh!!!

I run out the door (my coworkers are staring after me) and called hubby. We met at home. We packed overnight bags (just to be safe), the portable DVD player (to keep little one occupied in the ER), picked up little one and set off to Texas Children's Hospital down in Houston. We arrived at 3:30pm. They triaged her at 4:00. Her oxygen level was down again to the low 90s. The reason her wheezing was less was that now her lung was completed blocked and no air was getting through at all. (Don't I feel like a horrible mother. I thought she was geting better when she was really getting worse.) Sat in the waiting room until 6. At 6, we were called to the exam room where we gave little ones history to the nurse. At 6:25, we gave her history to the resident. At 6:40, we saw the attending. At 7: 30, we met with the ENT. At 8:00, they took the confirming X-ray that there was a blockage. At 8:30, we went to pre-op. At 9:15, they took her off to the OR. At 10:30, they called us back to post-op. At 11:40, we were assigned to a room. A long, scary day....with a positive outcome.

Little one handled everything with a smile. (I was off cowering in a corner.) As we waited in the ER, little one pointed out the colors of the various floor tiles, was laughing, crawling up and off her chair, ran up and down the hallway, etc (just a few stops here and there for coughing fits). Others in the ER was sad, crying and otherwise miserable. It was a sad place to be and I wished the best for everyone.

Because we already had the initial X-ray, the various people that came by were just confirming the diagnosis of something being stuck in her lung. Everyone asked for the story of what brought her here. Everyone listened to her lungs and reaffirmed no air was getting through on the right side. Everyone did their best to put us at ease. Their confidence in dealing with this made us feel much better (as well as you can be in the emergency room).

Little one made friends at each visit. When one doctor left, she said "Bye Doctor." We were the only kiddo in Pre-op so she had the run of the place. Munchkin played hide and seek with the nurses. They brought her a little pink car that she "drove" around. She was having a good time. By the time they took her off to the OR, she barely gave us a glance because she was with her new friends. Meanwhile, hubby and I are puddles, feeling bare without our little one with us.

The doctor came to the waiting room and showed us photos of the blockage. The offending object? A cashew, two actually. One was totally blocking the right lung and another piece was "way" down. Because it had been in there for two days, the lung was also filled with pus (infection....pneumonia) and it had started to leak over into the left lung. He said if we had waited another 12 hours, we would have had a "really sick little girl."

I stayed the night with little one. They gave her a couple of breathing treatments and rounds of antibiotics through the night and the next morning. Since she seemed to be responding well, they released her with a prescription of "strong" antibiotics. When hubby filled the prescription, the pharmacist told him this was a REALLy large dose (3 x a day, 9ml per dose) of a very strong antibiotics. He also warned us that it was really foul tasting and, because it is a granular suspension, you cannot use a sippy cup as it would be filtered out.

I had dreams [nightmares] about giving the rug rat the antibiotics. We can barely get liquid Tylenol down her and that tastes good. What was our chance of successfully getting this down her? According to hubby, I was talking about this all night. We happened to have a couple of small apple juice boxes (with straws). With hope and a prayer, we decided to try putting the medicine in there. She drank it!!!!! And, she drank the other two today as well. Yeah! Now only 8 more days of this.

Thanks to everyone for all their kind thoughts and prayers.