Just Another ER Visit

It should be more jarring for me to hear the pediatrician to leave her office and head straight to the ER. It's weird that those words don't alarm me too much, isn't it? Obviously Ruby is on mission to keep us familiar enough with medical 'stuff' that it doesn't phase us.

Last week found Ruby under the weather. Aside from two quick fevers at the beginning, she was presenting the same thing the rest of Atlanta was experiencing: pollen-induced yuck in the way of coughing, runny nose/sneezing, and red-eyed run-down-ness. I took her to the pediatrician on Monday, and she didn't test positive for anything, so we figured *just* a virus.

So our spring break was spent mostly hanging at home, trying to recoup and not overexpose. Through the week Ruby seemed to get better, coughing only a little at night and perking up in general. Then, over this last weekend, she was up with coughing fits through the night, even though she acted fine during the day. Monday morning came, and we did a breathing treatment (as we had been doing throughout the last week, to help with the coughing) in preparation to return to school, but Ruby just couldn't seem to rally.

So I packed Ruby up in the car and headed back to the doctor instead. Once we were called back, the nurse immediately pulled out the pulse-ox meter because of how lethargic Ruby was acting. It was low, even though she'd just done a breathing treatment. They decided to give her another type of treatment, to see if that helped. Once the mask hit her face, she perked up a little, but even after 15-20 minutes of it, her numbers hadn't budged. The doctor checked her out probably three different times through all of this, listening to her chest, her cough, her breathing so many times. In the end, she couldn't get any consistent sounds from her, so she told us to head to the hospital - she would call them so they'd be ready for us.

And they were; when we checked in, Ruby was called right back and they had oxygen ready for her. We stayed in the ER exam room for a little bit and then went back for a chest X-ray, which confirmed pneumonia. From there, they started IV antibiotics and an hour long breathing treatment, to see how much that affected the numbers. They didn't move, so Ruby was admitted to the hospital. The oxygen had to stay under her nose throughout the day and night, which was quite the challenge...she did NOT like that. Also, putting the IV in her hand was harder than I thought it would be. The first nurse that tried did not have good luck on either hand and Ruby cried in pain the whole time. (I didn't like that at all!) Another nurse got the line in quickly, but my girl was wide-eyed with fear by that point.

It was 6PM by the time we got to Ruby's room, so I ordered her some dinner right away. She ate it very quickly and then snuggled in with me and dozed off...it had been a long day. Of course, she still had to do breathing treatments and antibiotics every four hours, so around 8AM, she was woken up by me holding a breathing treatment mask over her face (she still had her oxygen nose thing too)....yet another traumatic experience for my girl. Thankfully it was short-only about a five minute treatment, and Daddy walked in to trade places with me very shortly after. (Daddy always makes things better.)

The next morning I returned around 9AM to find that they'd already taken more blood to test and compare against her initial draw. Also, her oxygen had been removed! A few hours later the team declared that her blood showed remarkable improvement, and assuming she held her passable pulse-ox levels for another few hours without receiving oxygen, she would be able to leave. The doctor that saw us in the ER commented on his surprise in delivering that news because based on how she presented the day before, he thought she would be there for at least three days.

As it always does, the discharge process took very long and it was dinnertime before we actually got home. But Ruby perked up at the sight of her home and her people, and was oh-so happy to sleep in her own bed. She has been way more cuddly and clingy to me than usual...this bout of illness has definitely shaken her a bit.

Unfortunately, she has still not returned to school. The doctor's released Ruby to return as soon as she felt up to it, which we assumed would be Wednesday, based on her afternoon and night Tuesday. However, she was very fatigued upon getting up, and actually went back to bed for a full hour after a quick bite to eat. So we are in a holding pattern - fatigue is real and it comes on quickly. In the meantime, we are doing breathing treatments and antibiotics and hoping for Ruby's stamina to return.