Have I Got a Story For You!

As most of you know, Cassidy had pneumonia in September. We spent 3 days in the hospital and everything was better. Well, on Thursday (Nov. 18) I got a phone call from her school saying she coughed so much that she threw up. Of course that meant that I had to pick her up from school. (Now just so you know, she wasn't even coughing on Wednesday AT ALL!) When I got to the school, she was fine, a little cough but nothing bad. However being a mom with three kids, I made a doctor's appointment for 3:15 that afternoon. I always try to get to the office early, so hopefully that means they will see us quicker. We sat in the waiting room all of five minutes, before Cassidy was really struggling to breathe. I went to the desk and told the receptionist that she really needed to be seen. (Usually I do not mind waiting, but something told me we could not wait this time.) They got a nurse, who took her straight back and gave her a breathing treatment. (With asthmatics, they always put on a O2 saturation monitor. Her pulse-ox was 88.) After the breathing treatment, her pulse-ox went up to 94/95. She was doing better. However, what kind of story would this be without more. About 30 minutes later, her pulse-ox dropped back down to 89/90. Of course no one was happy with that. The doctor put her on O2, which only brought her pulse-ox up to 92/93. A second doctor came in and both doctor's agreed that she needed to go into the hospital. Not only into the hospital, but she had to go by ambulance. She freaked out! When the ambulance got there, the paramedic had to put in an IV. (Not Cassidy's favorite thing!!) She cried. The paramedic told her that if he put the IV in she could get a new teddy bear. She let him and got a cute little pink sparkly bear. I followed the ambulance and the boys were with me. We got to St. Mary's hospital in Hobart and sat in the ER until almost ten. They were waiting for a room for her. They did an x-ray and an hour long breathing treatment. The boys were bored and decided to fight with each other to pass the time. I am sure the people in the ER were very glad to see us go. We went up to the pediatric unit, where Cassidy was very excited to see nurses she remembered from previous stays. Her pulse-ox never got above 93, so on Saturday morning the doctor decided it was time to send her to a children's' hospital. We ended up going to Riley Children's' Hospital in Indianapolis. I was told that if there had been no fog , she would have been airlifted to the hospital. As it was, I followed the ambulance to Riley's. We never went slower than 80 mph on I-65. When we got to Riley's, Cassidy was admitted to the PICU, the pediatric intensive care unit. All day Saturday, her pulse-ox stayed about 90. The doctors decided to give her moist, heated O2. She was at 100% until the middle of the night when they turned it sown to 50%. Her pulse-ox through the night was 97/98. This morning was a whole different story. Her pulse-ox dropped to 85/86. Everyone was really concerned that they would have to insert a breathing tube. We had a tense couple of hours. However, they decided to try something different. They put her back on an O2 mask with the heated, moist air. They gave her a breathing treatment and then used another treatment machine. She had to breathing in and out deeply and when she breathed in the machine gave an extra puff and forced air deep into her lungs. After she did that, they used a third machine that pounds on her back to help loosen the mucus in her lungs. Right now (7:30 CST, Nov. 21) she is down to 60% o2 and her pulse-ox is up to 95/96. Tomorrow, we will meet the pulmonary specialist and see what we can do to stop this from happening again. I am sure this story is not quite over, we will have to see what happens tonight and tomorrow. TAFN ~ That's all for now!