Well, since I last wrote we have had a visit from the police, a visit to the police station, a five day hospital stay and of course the normal chaos.
The visit from the police was actually quite amusing! My boys were selling Cub Scout popcorn and I was delivering it to my next door neighbor. Christopher came over to get his inhaler and said that there was a raccoon in the yard. I said he could wait a couple of minutes for it to leave. Then he told me that the raccoon was falling down. That concerned all of us, so of course we went outside and found not a raccoon, but a opossum. It was sick, it took about 2 steps and then fell over. He hid under my house. So we decided to catch it in a pet carrier and call animal control. My neighbors have air guns (kind of like BB guns, but not) and they were trying to scare the opossum out from under my house and my other next door neighbor called the police because they were "shooting" guns. The police came, 3 of them. No one got it trouble, but they did stay for about 30-45 minutes to help us catch the animal. Animal control picked it up the next day.
Our police station visit was with Barry's Cub Scouts. The Chesterton police station and fire station are in the same building, so we got a tour of the police station (got to climb in a police car and hear the sirens up close) and the fire station (they still have a fireman pole). Cassidy and Barry went to that. Christopher was with his Cub Scout den at the library. Anyway that was a fun experience.
The five day stay in the hospital was not so much fun. Cassidy had been coughing for about a month with numerous visits to the doctor. Finally last Monday (10/19) the doctor put her on an antibiotic and gave her an inhaler. (She has never used an inhaler before and has no idea how to use it.) On Wednesday she was having a little trouble breathing about 10:30 pm. I took the boys to my mother's and took her to the hospital. They took us straight back and gave her a breathing treatment. They did a chest x-ray and found that she had bronchitis and pre-pneumonia. Because I have a nebulizer machine at home they sent us home and said that she should continue the antibiotic and do breathing treatments every 4 hours when she was awake. No problem. We had a follow up appointment with her doctor on Friday and everything was going well. On Saturday, she began to really have a hard time breathing. She was doing breathing treatments every 1 to 2 hours. (Not a good thing!) I took her back to the hospital and here is where it got interesting. We got to the ER and checked in with the triage receptionist. Cassidy was doing fine at the time, so I was not too worried when she said there were about 5 people ahead of us. About 10-15 minutes later Cassidy started to have a REALLY hard time. I got back up and told the receptionist that she needed to be seen NOW. The receptionist said she would tell the nurse (never happened.) Another man came in and said he was having trouble breathing and they took him straight into triage. Still no help for Cassidy. By this time she was crying and saying she could not breathe. A whole bunch of people came in and so another nurse came to help the triage nurse. She actually came into the waiting area and just looked at everyone to see if anyone needed immediate help and saw Cassidy. She listened to her lungs and took us straight back, no triage. Before Cassidy saw the doctor the nurse had her on O2 and had called for a respiratory therapist to give her a breathing treatment. They did another x-ray and she had full blown pneumonia. Her breathing was so bad that they gave her a breathing treatment that lasted an hour and they did a blood gas (not a good experience). Had the results of that been any worse they were going to transfer her to Riley Children's hospital in Indianapolis (about 2 hours from here.) Luckily they were good enough for us to stay in northwest IN. Cassidy's O2 saturation dropped to 88 (should be 95 or higher) every time they took the O2 off until Tuesday evening. That is why she stayed in the hospital so long. She was able to come home Wednesday. She is back at school now (half day today and full day starting Monday.) She is MUCH better. Normal chaos is, well, normal. Girl Scouts, Cub Scouts, AWANA, school, etc. are all going fine. The kids are ready for Halloween. I hope everyone has a safe and happy Halloween. Enjoy!!
