Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Wow, what a terrible blogger I am! I keep telling myself I am going to update more often, and I keep forgetting. We’re busy, we’re stressed. Whatever. 
 
Audrey has been SICK SICK SICK. It started last weekend with pinkeye. I woke up and could see in the dark that there was something on her eye. I leaned over to kiss her and felt the hardness that had formed around her eyelid, and when I turned on the light I could see how bad it was. Her eye was stuck shut until we took a wet washcloth to it and washed everything off. The doctor saw us first thing in the morning and gave us some eye drops. She also mentioned that Audrey was congested and had what looked like the beginning of an ear infection. She wrote us a prescription for Amoxicillan and said to fill it if she got any worse. Well, Saturday morning, she was worse. The eye infection had spread to her other eye, and her congestion was much worse. She was fussy & moaning all day. It was so hard to see our normally happy girl feeling so sick and miserable. I filled the prescription and Sunday morning she seemed to have improved. Unfortunately, that was the last time she’s been well. She got progressively worse all week. Fussier, more crying (she hardly cries normally), wimpering, snot dripping everywhere, and then there was the cough. It started Monday and was a dry cough, but by Friday it was a very wet, heavy cough. I took her into the doctor’s office Friday afternoon and they said she sounded great (umm, what?) and that her ear infection was gone, if it had ever fully come on in the first place. I thought, Ok, we’ll just finish the amoxicillan and everything will be better. Saturday morning I woke up at 4 am to her projectile vomiting all over the bed. Scary. I cleaned her up and we went back to bed, hoping it would be better in the morning. Then she vomited again at 7 am when we got up, and I also noticed that she had pinkeye again. Again. In addition to the vomiting, she was also running a low fever at this point. We decided to monitor her fever and behavior throughout the day and hope for improvement. We went to Cheryle’s for a bit, and on the way home, Audrey vomited again in the car. We got home and tried to rest, but she seemed to be really going downhill. I called the nurse’s line at my doctor’s office and they had an hour long wait for call backs. At this point, Audrey was looking vacant, not engaged with us at all, falling asleep while we were playing with her, wasn’t eating well, and just not herself. You know your child, and this was not Audrey. So we decided to go the ER. We got there just as my nurse was returning my call - the doctor wanted us to give her Tylenol and head to the ER. Perfect! We were about to get out of the car and walk in when Audrey started spewing vomit again. We were all covered in it, and her clothes were soaked through. Of course mother of the year right here didn’t have a change of clothes in the diaper bag, so she spent the whole ER visit in a diaper. At least I had diapers...

 
They tested her for flu, RSV, bronchitis, and all came back negative. Her fever had gotten up to 102.3 and started to go down while we were at the hospital. She was acting better, more alert and even smiling and talking to the nurses. Ultimately, the doctor told us that she did in fact have an ear infection, a severe one at that. She gave us a new prescription for antibiotics to get for Audrey and we started them Sunday morning. I don’t yet see any improvement. She can’t sleep. She is eating better, and hasn’t thrown up since Sunday morning. Last night she just coughed up stuff all night long, and none of us slept well. Josh or I were jumping up every time she coughed to make sure she was breathing...the coughing fits are really tough on her. Gasping for breath and it seems like she’s choking on mucous at times. We have one  more day taking the antibiotics and I really hope to have this done with by the weekend. I want my happy healthy girl back!

1 comment:

  1. Poor little baby. Poor Mommy & Daddy too. I hope she gets better while I'm there. Listen, "mother of the year - no change of clothes" who cares. Don't sweat the small stuff honey. You were in tune enough with your baby girl to already be at the ER when the Dr. advised it. That's pretty important compared to a change of clothes.

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