Pneumonia AGAIN!

We sent Arianna back to school the week after her cath and she came home sick with a runny nose and her asthma was really acting up. So I pulled the nebulizer out and was very proactive with it.
She had Friday off which I was happy about so we let her rest up. She was better by the next week. So we sent her back to school.

She only goes to school Mon, Tues and Fri..but when she came home Tuesday she was running a fever. After 4 days of a fever the coughing started so out came the neb. On Monday she was looking sick with no signs of kicking it soon so off to the pediatrician we went.

Chest x-ray showed perihilar opacities consistent with viral pneumonia or pulmonary edema. YEAH..you better believe I was getting nervous. I called cardiology and pulmonology and both felt that it was NOT pulmonary edema but pneumonia. THANK GOD! You see pulmonary edema would of meant she was in heart failure. Even though we are not happy about pneumonia it is our better alternative.

She started on azithromycin and doing Xopenex nebs every 4 hours as well as increasing her Flovent inhaler for several days. Withing 24 hours of her first does of antibiotics her fever stopped! She is still having trouble at night with the coughing but I'm going to do a midnight neb to help with that. Her sats are staying high which the pulmonologist says because we have been doing the preventative steroid inhaler! Good thing we did that this winter!! We are trying hard to get her better before her birthday party on Saturday. I can't believe my baby will be 5!!!!

So here we are the day before Thanksgiving and she is doing great! Still doing our nebs and will finish the antibiotics on Friday. Devin decided to get in on the action and spiked a fever o f 102 last night and still having ALOT of head congestion and runny nose. Daddy even decided to get in on the action and is sick but of course he went to work. Such a good Daddy! I'm flooding my system with medicine so this head cold doesn't get any worse. WE WILL BE HEALTHY!!!!

Arianna has pneumonia

We took her in last Thursday and the pediatrician said she has pneumonia in the left lower lobe. We started her on Cefdinir and she seems to be doing well. Hardly any need for oxygen. But she is staying home from school and activities. It's Tuesday and Im a little concerned that her sats are not staying where I would like. They were great yesterday so Im not sure whats going on. I'll take her for a follow-up with the pediatrician on Thursday.

Arianna's battle with atypical pneumonia

Arianna got really sick at the end of winter. I knew something was really wrong but when we took her to the ER they did a chest x-ray and said she was fine and sent us home. Three days later at her follow-up peds appointment they told us she was diagnosed with pneumonia in the hospital which wasn't true. Apparently, her initial radiographs were read normal but the final results showed pneumonia. Needless to say for 3 days she was just sitting at home getting worse. This is how sick she was..

She was on 4 liters of oxygen and still barely holding sats at 90.

Right after taking this next picture her heart rate begin to drop into the 30's and she almost coded on me. SCARY!

Thankful for an amazing pulmonologist who spoke with me constantly via email and phone we were able to keep her out of the hospital and cared for her ourselves. It was 24 hour care and it was very exhausting..
but I wouldn't of done it any other way. She is my life, my love and I am so thankful God gave her to me.

First smile after 10 days!!!

I thought we were finally rounding the corner..

Then she got worse.

Thank God for my mom. She would come work from my house so she could help us with Devin. Even with the 3 of us there we had our hands full. If it wasn't for her I don't think I could of gotten through those 2 week. She cooked dinner, cleaned, took care of kids, let me shower and cry on her shoulder. Thank you Mom for all that you do for us.

FINALLY she was doing slightly better and wanted to color. It lasted a few minutes but it was a start.

My hands were a little full. :)

My mom and Arianna in the kitchen baking cookies. Yes..she's in the highchair. Only way we could get her to sit up. Man, her color was pretty bad now that I look back at her pictures.

She even asked to do some scrapbooking! That's my girl!

Just when we thought we were going to fall over from exhaustion...

That's right..my little boy decided to get in on the action. Devin's very first breathing treatment.

In the ER

Trying to put on a happy face.

Wow, where do I begin? Early this morning Arianna woke up very fussy and with labored breathing. I immediately checked her pulse ox and she was at 83%. I stayed up monitoring her and her numbers remained low and even dipped into the high 70's. I put a call into one of the cardiologists from the clinic and he said she was in respiratory distress and I needed to take her immediately to the ER.


When we got there she was satting at 84% and they put her on oxygen. They checked her sats again and was in the high 90's. We waited for 2 hours with a screaming baby just to wait another 2 hours before they did chest x-rays to see if she had pneumonia. The doctor, who by the way is a total ass, told me her x-ray wasn't good and showed some hazziness. She said this can either be pneumonia or signs of heart failure. So at this time we were really freaking out. They started breathing treatments and were going to start antibiotics. The breathing treatments really seem to help but only for a short period of time. She has been so miserable all day long and just cries and cries. By this time they had to up her oxygen to 4 liters to hold her numbers in the high 90's. They said she was going to be admitted but they were waiting for a room. They were going to call pediatric cardiology but they wanted to wait until we got situated in our room on the peds floor. Well hours go by and we were still sitting in the ER so they called the pediatric doctor to come evaluate Arianna. While giving her history Arianna seemed to be getting worse and worse. She was just laying flat on he back, staring at the ceiling with no expression on her face. Her numbers began to drop and she started looking pretty bad, they dropped to 74%....you better believe that got someones attention. I think this doctor, who is a resident, was scared out of her mind. By this time Arianna still hadn't received her antibiotics, no one had bothered to do anything for her. I am so glad this doctor was in the room when this happened. She immediatly had the attending ER doc in the room who was telling her that Arianna had already received her antibiotics. At that point I looked at her and wanted to slap her, I told her that she hadn't recieved anything and the nurses hadn't even started an IV. They told me that peds cardiology was called and Dr. Barber was on his way to do an echo. This was the same cardiologist who took care of her when she was born. So anxiously we sat here praying she wasn't in heart failure. The echo came back good, well good for her condition. Her left ventricle was vigourusly working, the right ventricle had more muscle thickening, and she has severe pulmonary insuffiency, but NO HEART FAILURE!! Thank God!

They are now thinking it has to be pneumonia, but NO ONE will confirm or deny that. They are still still giving her antibiotics. They wanted to check for sepsis because she had some signs of that, just upped her albuterol treatments to q. 2, which means, every 2 hours, and still on 4 liters of oxygen. They are hoping with a few days in the hospital getting fluids and oxygen that this will go away and we can taper her off the oxygen.

To top things off the peds floor is full so we are spending the night in the ER. Thankfully we are in a private room and sharing a bed together. So between the waking up every 2 hours for treatment and the loud ER, it will be a long night. I'm sure I forgot to type something, but its midnight and I need to try and sleep before they come in at 1am for her next treatment. We plan on being her for a few days, but I have the laptop so I'll keep you posted.