Lil's Hospital Stay

OK so I've had a smidge more sleep and can actually string more than two words together now so I'll try to give a general overview of Lilly's hospitalization and all of the excitement it entailed.

Let me preface this by saying that she was perfectly fine on Monday. We spend the day outside playing, swinging, etc and she had a great day. She slept well Monday night and when she got up Tuesday she seemed fine also. She was a little fussier than normal but nothing that caused me to think anything out of the ordinary. I had a meeting at South Edmonson about Noah's food allergies and when I got back we got the kids ready to go to Vandy for the eye appointment.
The appointment went fine and the specialist also did a quick exam of Lilly's eyes and we started home. Of course it's a fairly lengthy drive and we got caught in a lot of traffic and so Lilly started to get really really upset. Crying, wailing, fussing, etc. We did what we could to calm her down and by the time we got closer to home she had fallen asleep.

When we made it home it was time for prayer meeting, but Lilly had a little bit of a runny nose and she was slightly wheezy sounding (which we thought was due to allergies since she'd been outside so much on Monday) so we decided that Travis would stay home with her and Noah and I went on to church.

I got home around 9 and walked in the room and Travis was holding Lilly (asleep) and I could hear her wheezing before I even got two steps in the door. We decided to get her up and give her a breathing treatment with the nebulizer to see if that gave her any relief, but it didn't at all. Withing 15 minutes she was wheezing severely and crying and sweating so we decided to take her straight to the ER. Thankfully, Travis' parents were able to take care of Noah.

We got to the ER around 10:30 and it was FULL... by the time we were finished waiting in the waiting area Lilly's breathing continued to get more labored and she had vomited all over the lobby. I walked back to the triage nurses and asked them to reassess her because she had started retracting (breathing with your abdomen where your chest sucks in and your ribs are visible) and was not even moving enough air to really wheeze any more. After they checked her and saw that her oxygen level was dropping they took her straight back.

So, from that point on they started doing stronger dosages of breathing treatments and oxygen. Basically they did two back to back and added a steroid shot and it didn't do anything. She just continued to get worse. The doctors and nurses kept coming back in and basically told us they weren't sure what was causing it and that they were not sure why the treatments were not working. Needless to say, Travis and I were scared to death. Lilly was fighting to even get a breath and all of the meds they were giving her were not having any affect.

At that point they decided to put in an IV (not a fun process for a 20 month old) and push some fluids, more steroids and a broad spectrum antibiotic. They also kept questioning me whether or not she was current on her vaccinations (she was) and if she'd ever had an episode like this before (she hadn't). They also ordered several blood tests to be done as well as a chest X Ray. At this point, it is about 3 am and none of us have been to sleep and Lilly is DONE being fooled with. She is fighting everything they are trying to do for her, so in turn we are having to hold her confined while they poke and prod and stick. It was literally one of the very hardest nights of my life. After the finally get the IV in place they put her on an oxygen mask and she is able to rest a little with me holding her which I continued to do until 7:30 am all while watching a machine that is telling us that the oxygen in her blood is continuing to fall. Up until then, she hadn't let anyone but me hold her for the past 6 or 7 hours, but my Mom arrived and Lilly would let her hold her so I was able to get up and walk around and get some coffee etc. By this time it had been over 24 hours since Travis or I had slept.

At that point, the pediatrician on call came to the ER to admit her and order some more tests. They moved us to a room and continued to do breathing treatments and to keep her on constant oxygen. Later that morning Lilly's pediatrician came in to tell us that she was positive for microplasm (more commonly known as "walking Pneumonia" and that we would be starting more antibiotics/steroids to treat that. She continued that all day with the oxygen but still wasn't able to keep her oxygen level stable. Also, she absolutely refused to wear the little oxygen thing so one of us had to manually hold it up to her fact around the clock. That night she was finally able to sleep a little so I slept in the hospital bed with her to make sure she didn't pull the IV out of her arm or get herself tangled in the tubing. They woke her up about every 3 hours to do more treatments and to take her temp, blood pressure, etc.

Finally about midnight on Wednesday night she was able to come off of the oxygen periodically and maintain her levels on her own so by Thursday morning she was well enough to be discharged home with round the clock breathing treatments and oral meds.

Anyway, I was very very tired but very very relieved and thankful that Lilly was OK. We were so glad to get home to our own beds and showers! She has been OK today, just more tired and grumpier that usual, but she's definitely on the mend!