Tough times

Daisy is pretty sick. She had a bad cough for a few weeks, and I was starting to worry because it didn't seem to be getting any better. It was a very congested-sounding cough, way down deep in the chest. But I hadn't gotten *too* worried because she didn't have a fever. She would cough for an hour or more at night, though, and was having a hard time getting rest. Then she started vomiting, on Sunday I guess it was, at the Rossi Playground while we were also taking care of our friends' baby. That night she vomited again, in her sleep, and on the advice of the Kaiser advice line, we decided to take her to the doctor the next day.

As it turns out, the doctor told us she has viral bronchitis and that she has a wheeze and is having trouble breathing, which is a definite reason to take your child in. I feel like a bit of a failure, because I'd had the thought that her breathing had sounded labored but had not allowed myself to believe it. Anyway, though, our doctor said it was good we brought her in when we did because the problem would have only gotten worse and worse till a real breathing crisis finally brought us to the doctor. She prescribed us an inhaler with a contraption attached to it--a spacer, I think it's called. Because Daisy is so little and can't use an inhaler properly, we have to put a mask over her face and administer 3 puffs of Albuterol every four hours. She has to take ten breaths for each puff. We have a follow-up in a week to see if her breathing gets better. I can really hear it now, the labored breathing, especially following a coughing fit.

Then, today while I was at class, she vomited again and then broke out in rash all over her ankles, legs, and backside--big red itchy welts. She just really seems to be in bad shape, falling apart on all levels. Luckily, I think we've gotten the rash under control. The advice line said to give her children's Benadryl, and the rash seemed to improve a lot afterward.

I am worried, though. She can't seem to hold anything in her stomach; she can't sleep well because her cough wakes her up; she is having trouble breathing, and I'm concerned that she might develop some kind of chronic asthma-like condition out of it. Daisy's health is of course my top priority, and all else seems relatively insignificant when she is unwell, but an added stress is that it's hard for me to get work done for my graduate program when all this is going on. We spent hours with the doctor yesterday, figuring out what was wrong, waiting for prescriptions to be filled, and then getting instructions on how to use the inhaler. Everyone's pretty wiped out here and worried about Daisy.