Pneumonia

What a week. Quite possibly one of the longest I’ve ever experienced. It was only about ten days ago that Ellie came down with a cold, but I swear it was a month ago.

So, let’s start with that. She came down with a cold. Two Fridays ago. Just your average, run-of-the-mill cold. Bad cough. Runny nose. Fever. She was miserable, but I figured we could hold out for the normal 3-4 days that the worst of a cold normally lasts. But by Tuesday, she wasn’t getting any better. Even though her fever wasn’t awfully high – it hovered at about 101-102 – it still hadn’t broken and when she zonked out at 9:00 in the morning, I noticed that her breathing was fast and labored. And I proceeded to panic. Just a teeny-tiny bit.

So off to the doctor we went. The doctor took one look at her and ordered an oxygen test. Her levels were only at an 83. Normal is mid-to-high 90s, so needless to say, she was seriously lacking. Three (very expensive) prescriptions, one chest x-ray, one oxygen tank, and one nebulizer (a machine that turns the liquid form of one of those prescriptions into a mist for her to inhale) later, the verdict was in – Ellie had pneumonia.

There have been a lot of thoughts running through my head the past few days, but one that keeps popping up again and again is how grateful I am for modern medicine. I’ll admit, the pneumonia diagnosis freaked me out a little bit. I chalk it up to the fact that I’ve read way too many historical novels (and probably watched too many movies) wherein pneumonia is a death sentence. It’s far from that these days, obviously, and I’ve found myself overcome with staggering gratitude that I live in 2012 as opposed to 1912. We’ve had antibiotics in our house before, but I’ve looked at that little bottle in a whole new light this week. Something I’ve often taken for granted is literally saving my daughter’s life. So is that annoying oxygen tank. It’s pretty incredible when you think about it.

But let’s move on to the important stuff. Like how Ellie is handling all this craziness. The first day, all the medicine and oxygen tubes up her nose and masks pressed to her face hardly fazed her at all. That’s proof of how sick she was. She basically just sat on my lap all day with a glazed expression on her face. I’m not going to lie, that’s when I was most worried. It was like my baby had disappeared and a zombie had taken her place. By the end of that day, I actually found myself missing her. As in, physically missing her – like she had gone on vacation. Even though she hadn’t budged from my lap all day long. It was a weird feeling.

 

She had a few normal moments on Wednesday, but wore herself out quickly and was zoned out again by the time Kevin came home from work.

 

But by Thursday, she was finally starting to act like her normal, silly self again. And that meant one thing: Trying to walk around the house with a 50-foot-long tube attached to her face. And it doesn’t matter how clear I tried to keep the floors, that dumb tube always found something to catch on. That in turn meant that every 5 minutes I heard her in the next room going “ow, ow, owwww!” Or, even better, “Mommy. Mommy. MOOOOMMYYYYY!” It also means that she had enough energy to fight the nebulizer. All I had to do was pull it out and she immediately ran behind the couch and hid. And unless cartoons are immediately turned on to distract her, much whining and screaming can be heard. Ah, the fun times we’ve had around OUR house!!

 

And that brings us to today. We went to the doctor one last time and finally got the good news that we could take her completely off of oxygen. I may have let out a cheer right there in the doctor’s office. And I may have been overheard singing songs to her about “freedom” as we walked out of the clinic and across the parking lot to our car. (Not that I really know any songs about freedom – I got stuck right after “born free…” and then tried again with “I’m freeeeee….free fallin’!” That’s about all I could come up with.)

Unfortunately, we’re still stuck on nebulizer treatments every four hours until the end of the week. You can see how much she loves that idea.

 

But we’re counting our blessings for the moment. We’re thankful we didn’t have to endure any kind of hospital stay, we’re thankful the pneumonia was only in one lung, we’re thankful for modern medicine, we’re thankful for friends and family who have made the experience so much more bearable, and most of all…we’re thankful the worst of it is behind us!