Lola's Major Illness, Round Two
Lola is a happy, happy kid, who is eager to laugh and smile and explore and play. That is, unless she is sick, in which case she becomes a grumpy, cuddly, screaming, tired mess. Lola never was sick when she stayed home with me, and was sick maybe once when she was in the older infants room at daycare. But as soon as she started transitioning into the Toddler room at daycare she became sick with a rather severe illness and she's been constantly sick ever since.
A few weeks ago Lola had labored breathing (we assumed in reaction to the high pollen count) and kept waking up, so we pulled out the nebulizer and the albuterol and did treatments at 11 p.m., 2:30 a.m., and 6 a.m. The treatments helped some, but didn't stop the development of a fever on Sunday, which meant that we had to start the "which adult stays home?" negotiations. (Kids need to be fever free for 24 hours before heading back to daycare.) Other than a slightly runny nose and the fever, Lola seemed relatively fine.
And then she got progressively worse: a much higher fever, sleeping 6 hours straight during the day, only drinking milk, refusing all food, crying incessantly, demanding to cuddle and refusing to do anything independently. At 72 hours of fever, she had a doctor's visit, another chest x-ray, and another diagnosis of pneumonia. She got an immediate dose of medicine in the leg and was sent home with a different medicine to take.
Friday morning she took one dose of the new medicine and then broke out in a full body rash, which started at the face and neck and then progressively spread to everywhere else. Since the rash could have been an allergic reaction to the medicine, she got another doctor's visit. The rash was irrelevant, but gave Lola's doc another chance to check her out. He measured the amount of oxygen in her blood, declared it to be too low, and sent us to the hospital.
We checked into the Missouri Baptist Children's ER, were connected with great nurses and a very nice doctor, and played the waiting game. Lola's oxygen looked fine, but to be sure they ran a lot more tests, including another chest x-ray. The worst involved drawing blood. They really struggled to find a vein to work. Eventually they selected one in her hand; I watched as they dug and dug around inside her hand as they hoped to hit the vein. They never did, so instead they filled up the vial with one drop of blood at a time. It was an excruciatingly awful thing to witness and be a part of and two weeks later she still has a bruise on her hand. But the hospital declared her fine and sent her home.
She slowly recuperated over the weekend and, come Monday morning, she had returned to her happy, playful, giggly self. Thank goodness.
Each day since, the daycare workers have reported that Lola has been a joy and that they've never seen her so happy. My response to them: "you hadn't had a chance to meet the real Lola yet. She's always like this, when she's not sick." Here's hoping that the real Lola stays around for longer and the sick Lola takes a hiatus.
A few weeks ago Lola had labored breathing (we assumed in reaction to the high pollen count) and kept waking up, so we pulled out the nebulizer and the albuterol and did treatments at 11 p.m., 2:30 a.m., and 6 a.m. The treatments helped some, but didn't stop the development of a fever on Sunday, which meant that we had to start the "which adult stays home?" negotiations. (Kids need to be fever free for 24 hours before heading back to daycare.) Other than a slightly runny nose and the fever, Lola seemed relatively fine.
And then she got progressively worse: a much higher fever, sleeping 6 hours straight during the day, only drinking milk, refusing all food, crying incessantly, demanding to cuddle and refusing to do anything independently. At 72 hours of fever, she had a doctor's visit, another chest x-ray, and another diagnosis of pneumonia. She got an immediate dose of medicine in the leg and was sent home with a different medicine to take.
Friday morning she took one dose of the new medicine and then broke out in a full body rash, which started at the face and neck and then progressively spread to everywhere else. Since the rash could have been an allergic reaction to the medicine, she got another doctor's visit. The rash was irrelevant, but gave Lola's doc another chance to check her out. He measured the amount of oxygen in her blood, declared it to be too low, and sent us to the hospital.
We checked into the Missouri Baptist Children's ER, were connected with great nurses and a very nice doctor, and played the waiting game. Lola's oxygen looked fine, but to be sure they ran a lot more tests, including another chest x-ray. The worst involved drawing blood. They really struggled to find a vein to work. Eventually they selected one in her hand; I watched as they dug and dug around inside her hand as they hoped to hit the vein. They never did, so instead they filled up the vial with one drop of blood at a time. It was an excruciatingly awful thing to witness and be a part of and two weeks later she still has a bruise on her hand. But the hospital declared her fine and sent her home.
She slowly recuperated over the weekend and, come Monday morning, she had returned to her happy, playful, giggly self. Thank goodness.
Each day since, the daycare workers have reported that Lola has been a joy and that they've never seen her so happy. My response to them: "you hadn't had a chance to meet the real Lola yet. She's always like this, when she's not sick." Here's hoping that the real Lola stays around for longer and the sick Lola takes a hiatus.
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