And in a Flash...

This past week Miss Chelsea has been super tired and I attributed most of it to her busy weekend. There was something brewing though, as we learned on Friday. She slept late on Friday and woke up with a frog in her throat. She coughed a few times, and didn't play much, so I knew something was coming on. Friday night was awful. By the time Ryan and I headed to bed around 10pm, I took her temperature and she was already up to 102. I had talked to her ped earlier in the day and they advised taking her in if she spiked a fever. I really didn't think it was necessary (and the ER on weekend nights is AWFUL!) So I called the oncology office. She was breathing find in between coughs, she wasn't retracting or having labored breathing, just the bad cough and the fever, so we just gave her some motrin to bring the fever down, and watched her closely.

She coughed all night long, the loud barking cough that scares mommy's and daddy's. It's the excruciating cough that makes you think they can't breathe. i was an extra nervous mommy, so into our bed she came. With every cough, I would sit straight up, watching her, waiting to be sure she was able to catch her breathe again. I think we finally got a few hours of sleep that morning. She woke up just before 9am, and laid on the couch. In fact, I laid her on the couch with Logan to watch cartoons while I took a shower, and she stayed there! I know Chelsea, and she must have been feeling pretty awful to stay in the exact same spot through my entire shower!



(Mom has out the camera, I better smile ... Her smile in front of the camera is just automatic. She even gave this smile for her chest xray later on.)




When I got out I decided it was time to have her checked out. LIke I said, there's nothing worse than an ER at night, so I wanted to check her out before dark. She had been awake for an hour when we left the house. All the way there, she laid in her seat listless. Only moving her little eyes. We ended up spending the better part of our day in the ER. One chest xray, IV, CBC, RSV, and strep test later ... the dr. told us it was viral bronchiolitis. Viral meaning, she'll have to work it out herself. He did give us a medication to reduce the inflammation and open up her airway a bit, and that seems to be working wonders.

Last night she slept very well, and I could count on one hand the number of times she coughed. Of course I was completely exhausted and I may have just slept through it. My mind was at ease though, her fever was down, and she had been checked out, so I wasn't as panicky and I could sleep. She slept late again this morning, and when she awoke she just laid in my arms for a long long time. I did get her to eat a piece of toast and she's up playing a little bit now, so things are looking much better! She's a little warm, and you can see in her face, particularly her eyes, that she still feels crummy. Maybe after a restful day today she'll be back to true Chelsea form by tomorrow.

I think Logan is feeling neglected. He's running wild, hitting, calling names and being extra extra nasty today. Sigh *** I can't wait for Daddy to get home!!!

Something I found interesting was we took her temperature under her arm and it read 98, then we did it rectally (something you can't do on oncology patients, but she's far enough out we thought it would be fine) ... and this time it was 101.9! It's pretty strange how different the readings were. It makes me wonder how many times we thought she had a fever and she really did, but the axillary temp showed she didn't.

I also have to add that we went to one hospital over the other hoping to run into a nurse that is also one of my Jazzercise students. She always says to ask if she's there if we need to go to the ER, and as soon as they took us back, we ran right into her! Boy was I excited to see her. Thanks Kristie for taking such good care of us yesterday. It's nice to have a nurse that knows you and knows a bit of your "history" ...