Shae's trip to the hospital

Shae started developing a cough a couple weeks ago, but the doctor said not to be concerned about it until it was accompanied by a fever. This past weekend, the cough returned and on Monday morning, Shae had a really low-grade fever of 99.9. She just didn't entirely seem like herself, though, so I decided to keep her home from school for the day.

She started out her sunshiney usual self, but as the day progressed she got more fussy... and her fever got worse. By 8 p.m. bath/bottle/bedtime, she spiked at 102.3. We called the doctor and the on-call said not to worry until it hit 103; in the meantime, alternate Tylenol and Motrin every 4-6 hours to combat the fever.

Shae slept through that night and woke up on Tuesday morning with a fever of 101.1. After a bottle and getting dressed, it dropped to 99.8 so we decided to take her to school. 30 minutes later, they called to say she was back up to 101.9, so I left work to go pick her up.

I called the doctor again to ask if I should continue on the Tylenol/Motrin path, but as soon as she heard the temperatures she said to come in NOW. (Not sure about the advice the on-call gave us...) We got to the doctor's office and they measured her blood oxygen level -- it was reading at 76%. (90 should be the very baseline for babies Shae's age.) I was immediately whisked off to the ER. They measured it again and it was 86% -- still low, but not as dangerously low. We took some x-rays, took some blood, got some oxygen hooked up and took a nebulizer treatment.

The story goes on from there, but the gist of the story is that Shae tested positive for RSV (a virus that shows up as just a cold in adults, but it attacks the lungs of little twerps like Shae) and showed some indications on her x-rays that her lungs are heading down the path of pneumonia. So we're in the hospital hooked up to an oxygen tube, getting nebulizer treatments and taking amoxicillin (sp?) until we get the green light to go home.

The upside is that this afternoon (Wednesday), Shae is a happy, chatty, laughing kid again -- a total and complete 180 from the sad, sick kid she was yesterday afternoon! So yay!

Mom and Shae in the ER right after we got there -- first nebulizer treatment. Look at that sad, sad face! (On Shae, not mom...)
Waking up on Wednesday morning -- smiles!

Snoozin' Susan with Piglet by her side:

Waking up from a nap:

Shae is in prison! Not really... but it kinda feels like it sometimes:

Getting a nebulizer treatment -- Shae doesn't much care for the mask, but she's a happy kid once she can breathe again afterwards!