ChezPerky

It’s been a difficult week, but there have been many upsides. 

First, the hospital visit:
The triplets have had a cold for about 10-12 days.  It was nothing more than a runny nose, so I didn’t think much of it.  But over the weekend, Ellie started coughing.  And coughing some more.  And then some more coughing.  That was Saturday.  Then Sunday the coughing got worse and was accompanied by a what I thought might be a little wheezing, but it wasn’t so bad.  And I thought, “Well, if it gets any worse, I’ll take her to the doctor tomorrow.  I’m sure she’s fine.”  Sunday evening, I put her to bed and she woke up within an hour coughing and crying, completely miserable.  She was definitely wheezing.  I paged the doctor on call (the doctor I don’t love), and told her what was going on and she said, “Well, there’s not a lot you can do for coughing other than steam treatments.  She might have an ear infection also, so you can try giving her Tylenol or ibuprofen and see if that helps.  Call me if it gets worse.”  But my baby!  My baby was wheezing.  I called my friend who’s a pediatrician down the block and told her what was going on.  She said she could listen to her, but if she was wheezing and really laboring to breathe, she needed to go to the emergency room.  Within an hour of having talked to my doctor-on-call, it was clear that my baby really couldn’t breathe.  So I called my doctor back, told her I was taking her to the ER, and left. 

We were seen immediately, and they immediately checked her pulseox, gave her steroids, albuterol via nebulizer, got a chest x-ray, gave her a thorough work up.  The first albuterol treatment helped a little, then she regressed.  The second albuterol treatment didn’t help at all.  The chest x-ray was pure misery.  They put my baby girl in this horrible medieval torture device that she hated and she raged against.  The x-ray technician thought she was going to break it, her rage made her so strong.  I secretly thanked heaven for her strength.  Strength and rage was better than lethargy.    Secretly, I didn’t blame her for raging against that contraption.  I would have, too.  The x-ray was consistent with an upper respiratory infection, but showed no signs of pneumonia.  She continued to wheeze, gasp for air, her pulseox continued to drop, so the ER doctor decided to admit her.

My poor baby.  My Eliana. 

Eliana means “Please, My God” (as in a prayer) or “My God has answered”  (we actually spell it the second way).  Though I was certain she would be fine, I was obviously praying for her to be fine.  My prayers were answered and she was released Monday evening.  Not without a little drama which I won’t relay here in the interests of time. 

She’s still on prednisone (almost done with that) and albuterol (every four hours until we decide she doesn’t need it).  And she’s been diagnosed with Reactive Airway Disease, and possibly asthma.  She’ll likely need nebulizer (albuterol) treatments every time she gets any sort of cough/upper respiratory virus for the long term.  But at least now we know what’s going on.  The virus she got this time could have been anything, just a cold, RSV, whatever.  They don’t know.  But for sure, the other triplets have it, too, but not to worry – to them, it shouldn’t be anything more than a bad cold/upper respiratory infection. 

Why Tuesday Sucked Mightily
After having gone 45 hours without sleep, I slept nearly 8 hours Monday night, which was miraculous.  Tuesday was a rush of activity – taking Ellie to the doctor, trying to squeeze in some work, etc.  Took J-man to speech therapy and on the way… *WHAM*  I was rear-ended.  No damage to my car, but my head started pounding immediately and my neck was really stiff.  Still, no harm, no foul.  Second time I’ve been rear-ended on my way to Speech Therapy in six weeks.  Sigh.

Speech therapist was running 10 minutes behind, fortunately, not a big deal, but I was tired, I didn’t want to be running behind tonight of all nights.  Sigh.  On the way out of the office, I called Seth to see what his status was – it was nearly six o’clock… he should have been halfway home.  He didn’t answer his cell phone, so I paged him.  And he called me back.  From his office number.

“What on earth are you still doing in Baltimore??”
“Well, if you’ll give me a chance, I’ll tell you what happened.”

His car wouldn’t start.  And someone in the garage tried to jumpstart the battery, but no dice.  Le Sigh.  Fortunately, it was a Tuesday.  We have a babysitter on Tuesdays.  So I got the J-man home, got Ellie her nebulizer treatment and her prednisone, got the babies to bed, got the J-man his dinner, packed up my things, and headed to Baltimore to rescue my husband, who meanwhile had called Roadside Assist to tow his car (they wouldn’t tow all the way back home, but would tow somewhere close to his work to someplace that would replace the battery the next day… he just needed me to pick him up so that he could get home for the night). 

Half-way to Baltimore, he called and said, “A miracle happened – Roadside Assist was able to get my car started.” 

Needless to say, I still made the man take me to dinner.

Wednesday Doesn’t Get Much Better
I woke up Wednesday feeling like I had been hit by a truck.  Worse, Abby woke up sounding like she’d been hit by a truck.  Poor baby.  She was wheezing, coughing, struggling for air.  I made a mid-afternoon appointment for her with the pediatrician. 

And by mid-afternoon?  She was fine.  That’s what tends to happen with these things, by the way.  Worst at night and first thing in the morning.  Clear up during the day.  Le Sigh.

By evening, Abby was just awful.  She was wheezing, gasping for air, coughing.  She couldn’t sleep.  She screamed so much, she went hoarse by the next morning.  She was miserable.  Finally, we paged the doctor and gave her a nebulizer treatment which seemed to help.

Now I wonder if I have two babies with reactive airway disease.  It’s certainly not outside the realm of possibility, since they were both premature babies, and premature babies are obviously predisposed to respiratory issues, though as premature babies go, they were very healthy and escaped most of the respiratory issues that many premature babies have, since they were triplets (premature HOMs, especially ones born as late as mine were, tend to  have more mature lungs than premature singletons because they get more respiratory stimulation in utero than singletons do). 

Which Brings Us to Today
Everyone is recovering, including Mommy.  It’s just been a rough week.  I just wish there were more hours to sleep.  I keep saying maybe tomorrow, but then the other shoe drops.  Gosh, I have a lot of shoes. 

The Good News:

• Currently, none of my children are in the hospital, and they are all on the mend.
  
• My husband’s car has been repaired.  We had a lovely dinner in Baltimore.
  
• My car sustained no damage in the minor accident I had.  J-man was also unharmed.
  
• J-man made it to Speech Therapy on Tuesday and had a successful (if bouncy) session.
  
• I’m married to a delightful, wonderful man who takes care of me when I’m at my wits’ end.
  
• I have so many supportive and wonderful friends, and such wonderful family. 
  
• I am very blessed.