J Story

J is sick. Not "rush to the hospital" kind of sick, but sick none the less. In fact, if we haven't already had SOOO much experience from both she and B with RSV and pneumonia, we probably would have already gone to the doctor today, but I'm sticking to the rule of thumb of judging how bad it is by her behavior. And right now, she's acting fine.

She woke up coughing, crying, and feverish, and despite all I tried to do to make her feel better, she finally just looked at me and said, "I just can't stop crying." She felt that lousy.

After breakfast, I pulled out the nebulizer and gave her both her Pulmicort (inhaled steroid) and Albuterol. After she inhaled all that she could of both medications, she clearly felt a lot better. But she's still not great.

Once the boys were at school and we were all back home, I convinced her to lay on the couch and rest. It didn't take much for her to be breathing hard and retracting (using her chest muscles to help her breath) a LOT, but she wasn't wheezing at all. It's a tough call. If I call the doctors for advice it seems that they have to tell me to bring her in. And typically we go in, they listen, test her pulse ox (which for both kids is USUALLY fine, unless they're really obviously wheezing and struggling), do a treatment there (the same one I would do at home) and then send us home with instructions to do the treatments every three hours instead of every four. Sometimes they prescribe an oral steroid, and if it's after hours, they send us to the ER instead of even coming in. So after so many times of going in because they're breathing heavy and fast while retracting (three things they say to really look out for) only to have their pulse ox be well above 95%, I've learned to judge by the way they're acting instead. After she was outside for a bit and came back home, she seemed in a much better mood.

On to the story. If you're eating, you might want to stop.

J ate most of her lunch and was then eating apple slices still at the table. I left the dining room to replenish drinks and heard a cry of distress from the table. B came running in to tell me that J was in trouble. I ran back in and saw that J had thrown up (she has been coughing so much, so I have no doubt that a coughing jag triggered this) all over her self. With an apple slice still in her hand, she cried for me to clean her up. I quickly did, downplaying it to her because she was upset. While I was cleaning her up, she started heaving again. I held up a cloth and caught it all, telling her it was okay. The moment she was done, as I was moving the puke-filled burp cloth away from her mouth, she started eating that apple slice again. And continued eating the rest of her lunch as if nothing had happened. Now I'm glad she got over this incident quickly, but EWWWW!

You may now resume your snack. If you want.