Friday, November 7, 2008

Thursday, November 6th, 2008

Man I had a rough night last night! After my coughing spell with Daddy, I had another 1 1/2 hour coughing spell with Marianne. When Mommy came out this morning, I woke up and then coughed off and on for the next several hours until Lucille arrived. She called the pediatrician on call to ask if I could be having a reaction to the Synagis but he didn't think so. He told Mommy that if I started having difficulty breathing, wheezing or other symptoms to bring me in.

After a dose of Tylenol I perked up a little and then took a nap. The nap didn't seem to help much, though, because the next 3 hours Lucille rocked me while I cried. Nothing seemed to help. About 1, Mommy came to check on me and was concerned about how I was breathing. She called Karen, my case manager at her work, who thought over the phone it sounded like wheezing which could indicate my airway was getting swollen. She suggested Mommy hook me up to the pulse ox to see how much oxygen I was getting and then call the pediatrician. Mommy was shocked to see my heart rate was much higher than normal and I was only satting between 89-92 when usually I am between 97-100. Mommy called my pediatrician right away and got right through. While Mommy was on the phone describing what was going on, my pediatrician also thought I sounded like I was wheezing. She was planning on having Mommy bring me in for a nebulizer treatment but suddenly I coughed so hard I vomited up my entire feeding on Mommy. At that point, the pediatrician told Mommy to head to the ER.

Daddy came home so we could go the ER and I was able to sleep a little in the car until we got to UC Davis. They got us into a room pretty quickly and hooked me up to a pulse ox and my sats continued dropping and my respirations were much higher then they should be because I was working so hard to breathe. I was also running a pretty high fever (103) and my secretions were starting to turn from clear and white to green - a pretty good sign something was brewing. They had my parents take me to get a chest xray and while they waited for the results, hooked me up to a ventilator to give me some help so I didn't have to breathe so hard. They also took some blood, gave me two nebulizer treatments, put in an IV, got a urine sample and started me on IV fluids. The chest xray looked pretty clear so they are thinking it is not pneumonia. After 8 hours in the ER, I wasn't improving much so they moved me to a bed in the PICU where I will stay at least overnight. They are doing some tests to see if I have the flu, RSV, bronchitis or some other viral infection. By the time my parents were leaving for the night, the doses of Motrin and morphine had kicked in and I was starting to play some in the crib. In fact, I was showing off to the nurses my signs and how I can sit up in the crib and pull myself up using the bars. Mommy picked out some toys to play with and they got a mobile going to help me try to sleep. My parents never like leaving me alone in the hospital but they trust that UC Davis has great staff to care for me.

On the way home, they had just gotten on the freeway and came upon an accident that had just happened. Several cars were demolished and one was even on it's side. The first people on the scene had at least one person on the ground waiting for emergency medical personnel. It looked very serious. It reminded my parents of how lucky they are.

Peyton Nicole Smith

2 comments:

  1. Sounds like you have croup. Traiton had it last year and it was horrible. Love the pony tail, your hair is getting long. Traiton just got the new Elmo Live toy and he loves it. He thinks you should ask Santa for one. He know how much you love Elmo. Hope you getting feeling better.

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  2. We are all thinking of you sweet girl, and hoping that you get discharged and feeling back to your old self in no time.

    We LOVE you!

    Please take care of yourself sissy, and get plenty of sleep and rest, so when Peyton comes home you're ready to be the ever diligent mom that you always are.

    Aunt Kristin (sissy)

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