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novembre 12, 2005
My poor brave girl
Maddie was hospitalized again last night (seventh hospitalization in her 2 yrs. 3 months). She went into repiratory distress Fri. night around 5 pm. We drove in the emergency lane down to the hospital while she coughed so hard she threw up. It was scary. She's home now and is doing OK. She hasn't improved too much but she hasen't gotten any worse either, so she's stable enough to be home. She's on steroids to reduce the inflammation in her lungs and we're just waiting for them to kick in. She is using extra effor to breathe in the midst of all the breathing treatments we are giving her. I'm glad she's home but she's still pretty sick so it's scary. This time her breathing difficulty has been more along the lines of an asthma attack, though she has never gotten this bad before unless she has had food in her lung. She has had "reactive airway disease" since she was 4 months old. This is basically asthma induced by colds. Her maintance meds have been changed so hopefully this will not happen again, though her pulmonologist said we may very well end up in the hospital again this winter. It is scary to watch you child is such a state so I'm not looking forward to this. Needless to say, I need to make some decisions reguarding my school. The pulmonologist says she is fine to go back to school for now, that he wouldn't hesitate to tell us to make other arrangements if he felt it was necessary at this time, but we have a long winter ahead of us and I'm not sure I can handle this. I don't have long until the end of this semester and there is a possibility based on two different scheduling situations that we can get her down to going 3 half days a week, or maybe even less. There are no super hardfast rules. If you have a good reason you can decrease your load and save your next clinical rotation until later. So this wouldn't be a problem. I just need to decide and also see what these new meds can do for her. They don't carry any more risk than her current ones and may well keep her out of the hospital. Thing is, you catch colds everywhere, I can't keep her in a bubble, so where do I draw the line. The good news is that the pulmonologist said this will most likely be her worst year. Reasonable worst case senario is a course of steroids every month and maybe another hospitalizaiton. Steroids are serious though and carry alot of side effects inc. a decreased resistance to infection so it seems like a downward spiraling situation. Plus I don't want that. The real scary thing for me is the reality that kids do die from this, the great majority are fine, but Maddie is toward the more severe side at this point of the condition. This requires a lot of emotional and physical enery on Mike and I's part. We have to freak at every cough because that's just how this thing is, you really never know when it is going to get bad fast, you have to be on your toes all the time to have the best chance possible and who in the world is capable of being on their toes all the time, we are human, we need to sleep every once in awhile, we make stupid decisions and mistakes sometimes. When it comes to your baby, this reality really sucks, even if I do everything I can humanly, there is no guarantee. It's something every mom shudders to think about.
Posted by carriec at novembre 12, 2005 10:37 PM
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Comments
Praying for you.
Posted by: lynnp at novembre 13, 2005 08:48 AM