Just put it on my account

Considering we have been to Childrens Hospital now about five times in five years, I can just about start a tab running at the front desk. I think we have been in every room in the ER and we know the drill.
Abby knew that there were snacks, I knew where they were.
Abby knew there were movies on the TV, I pretty much remembered the channels.
Abby even recalled that they give patients a teddy bear, and being so prepared, sweet talked the nurse into one for herself before they delivered one for Emma.

Sunday night, Ang said, rightly and authoritatively

Something’s wrong.

Indeed it was. Emma had a respiratory infection, caused by respiratory syncytial virus a.k.a. RSV. It was likely her second infection in a row, and it had triggered asthmatic symptoms causing her much extra work while her lung capacity was reduced to about 30-40%. What made it difficult, at first, to conclude that something was wrong was her unusual happiness. She had a 103°F fever, enough phlegm to choke a horse, and still she smiled and laughed…until she coughed…and then she vomited…for the fourth night in a row…AND THEN Mommy made the aforementioned proclamation.

So, we took our semi-annual family trip to Sand Point. Spent five hours in the ER while Emma revolted at the mere hint of a face mask; much crying, then coughing, and…you know the rest.

After 2 hours on a nebulizer she showed good signs of improvement but not enough to give the supervising ER doctor a warm fuzzy feeling so she was admitted. Oh yeah, and that pretty much meant Mommy was admitted too.

In a nutshell, that meant Abby was at Gramma Nana’s that night at 11:30 The Daddy was asleep by 02:00 and The Mommy didn’t sleep at all while she held an oxygen tube, out of striking range, at three inches to ensure oxygen saturation above the level of alarm.

The next day, a short shift change, a short nap for the Mommy, and incremental improvement for a very tired little girl, the medical staff still insisted that Emma be off of her oxygen-crutch for a full 12 hours before going home. It sounded like they were talking sense; Childrens Hospital, for the most part deals in exceedingly good sense and my experience has shown that they perform especially well.

At this point the little mermaid pointed at the door and said

Ohme [Home]

We sympathized with her and yet the monitors remained.

That night the monitors were removed, and the next day she was declared ‘a discharge’ at 13:00. Five hours later the nurse printed out the first and last paperwork form detailing her medicines, got it utterly wrong*, and we bolted out of that cage like a family of relocated black bear. A little groggy at first but determined to put some distance between the cage and our numb hind ends.

After all that, we won’t be sure that Emma doesn’t have chronic asthma for a couple of years but we do know she has a propensity for asthmatic reactions to RSV that can be life threatening. We don’t know of any other triggers as yet but we are certainly now a bit more sensitive to the signs.

She may try to delete this when she is 15 but she is still really cute in that gown.

* I did say that ‘for the MOST part’ they deal in good sense. This guy was a piece of work. I didn’t see it all but I saw enough to know that he wasn’t gonna get any tip from me.