this girl. she can go from being 100% to less than 10% in the drop of a hat. she can spike a 102 fever, and then (after you've hemmed and hawed about it forever), she'll start to drop on her own before you've even poured the tylenol. she will be so puny she can't even stand on her own two feet, then rise to run and jump and dance with no apparent reason for the rally.
this makes it hard - so hard - to know what to brush off and what to bring to a doctor's attention. with eli and maddux, i was less than alarmed when they had the occasional fever or cough...almost every illness before ruby came along was treated with some extra steam in the shower and a nap. but ruby has had more medical challenges than we've known what to do with. the biggest (leukemia, of course) is the one that has made me run to the doctor way more often than i would like. mainly because i just don't know from one illness to the next which ones are 'real'. sometimes she seems so sick and we go in only to be told it's just a virus that needs rest and hydration. then she'll be seemingly fine and spike a random fever at school only for us to find out that she's got strep or bronchitis.
the last few weeks have found ruby a little congested, but all of us have been feeling the effects of allergies and/or poor air quality. so no reason for alarm. until this morning when she wouldn't rouse from her bed. she was awake, but lethargic at best. but even after a breathing treatment and a popsicle (tried to get her to eat ANYthing), she hadn't improved.
so ruby and i were off to the pediatrician when they opened. we were there for four hours. they didn't like her oxygen levels, so gave her another breathing treatment, which actually tanked her oxygen levels, so they wheeled the big O2 tank in. she had another treatment (or maybe saline and a treatment?) with the O2 - she slept through that because her pulse-ox was so low. then some prednisone and more saline (all the while with O2 on her because as soon as they took it off her levels tanked again).
finally, they resigned to sending us to the ER because ruby's levels could not stabilize without being hooked up to oxygen. so much so that they called for medical transport because they didn't even want her off of O2 for the 30 minute drive it would take for me to get her there myself. (all during this four hours, ruby saw every nurse and tech in the pediatrician's office, because they have all seen her so much in the last six years, and they all wanted to check on her. love them.) sidenote: ruby will tell you she rode in the ambulance 'by self'. they gave me the choice of following in my car or riding with them, but if i rode with them i'd have to be up front (not with ruby). so i opted to drive my car because i wasn't sure how we would get home from the hospital at the end without it anyway!
once at Children's, they hooked her up to oxygen and another breathing treatment and ordered a chest x-ray. the doctor was cautiously optimistic that we'd not have to stay the night, but it all hinged on those films. we stayed on breathing treatments and oxygen for what felt like forever and tried to pass the time with tv and books. once they took us for the x-ray, they decided to test ruby's oxygen levels without being hooked up. she said as long as we could keep it above 94, she'd be happy. so they left and ruby and i played the game that if she could cough for me or do deep breaths, i would give her a few goldfish. it was amazing how well she would do with that, and she kept her numbers closer to 98 the whole time. this went on for another long time, ending with the doctor returning to inform us we could go home with another (new) inhaler and some antibiotics to help clear up whatever was trying to brew in her lungs.
back to the whole 'i just can't tell' storyline. after dinner, ruby was dancing with her sister, packing a bag for a sleepover (she does this every day) and acting every bit her regular self. all less than 8 hours after she was hooked up to oxygen and sent off in an ambulance.
she keeps me on my toes, this one!
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