9-1-What??

On Friday Kate's eyes had green nasty mucus all over and I was worried she might have pink eye. I called the doctor and they wanted to examine her. Turns out my poor baby had a sinus infection. She started antibiotics Friday night and seemed more like herself, but still slow moving and cuddly, by Saturday. Monday morning she woke up bright eyed and bushy tailed though, talking and playing just like normal.

Hannah's sickness began on Saturday and seemed to get worse by the evening. At 11:30pm her coughing woke me up. I went to put another pillow under her head to prop her up and turn the humidifier on when I heard her breathing hard. I went back to bed, but worried a lot, so I checked on her again and she felt warm but told me she was cold. I called the after hours nurse hotline and told the nurse that Hannah was shivering, felt warm, coughing and having a hard time breathing. The nurse said, "I am not a medical doctor so I can not make a diagnosis but I recommend that you hang up immediately and call 9-1-1."

I was totally shocked because I was hoping to hear, "Give her some Tylenol and if her fever is not better in the morning take her to the ER" or in the worse case scenario I imagined she would say, "Bring her to the ER so we can check her out." I never thought she would say call 9-1-1.

I woke up Jeff panicked and he said, "Well, then call." I did and they dispatched an emergency medical team that was in our house within minutes. Hannah was still shivering and seemed to be struggling to breath. They took her temp: 103.8 and listened to her chest. There was no congestion in the chest so they said she was probably struggling to breath because of the high temp and the extreme shivering. They recommended taking her to the ER, either in the ambulance or we could drive her ourselves.

So, off I went to the ER with Hannah at midnight (I knew I would be too worried to sleep so I took her while Jeff tried to go back to sleep). Hannah had a chest X-ray which was clear, and after an extra strong dose of Motrin, Hannah's temp came down. We were then sent home at 2:30 am (with the time change though it was 3:30 am) with the recommendation to call our pediatrician on Monday.

Sunday she did not seem better. In fact, at 11:30 am (10:30 am with the time change) she said, "I have an idea. Let's take a nap." She then went to her bed and napped for 5 hours. She was definitely sick.

I called the pediatrician on Monday hoping they would say, "Keep giving her the medicine until her fever breaks" but instead they said, "Bring her in." If any of you are counting, this is my third doctor's visit in 4 days.

The doctor looked at her and said it sounded like Fifths disease. She checked her ears and both ears had an infection. She asked if the ER looked in Hannah's ears because she clearly had the infection for a while, but no, the ER listened to her chest, took X-rays, gave her some medicine and sent us home.

We started Hannah's round of antibiotics on Monday evening. So between 4 hour intervals of Tylenol, 8 hour intervals of Motrin, and 12 hour intervals of Amoxicillin Hannah seems to be getting better. Her fever broke yesterday and this morning while eating breakfast she said, "Mommy what we gonna do today? We can go to a friend's house or a park. You choose." Although her bossiness is something we are working on, it was so good to hear her sound more like herself again.