SICK!

Piper had parent-teacher conferences last week on Thursday.  She was fine that morning, and went to school with Luke and me.  Afterward, my mom, Addy, Piper and I spent the day together.

Piper fell asleep on the way home (about an hour and a half drive) and woke up just a few miles from home.  When we pulled into the garage, she was grunting as she was breathing.  I got us all indoors, took everyone potty, got shoes off, and got the pulse oximeter.  I checked Piper- she was sitting in the mid 80’s.  Crud.

Luke wasn’t home from work yet, but he was ready to leave.  We decided to meet a the ER and figure out what to do from there.  It was quickly approaching dinner time for Addy, so it was going to be interesting.  By the time I got shoes back on and the kids back out to the car, Luke actually beat us to the hospital.

We got checked in and, sure enough, her O2 was low.  They wanted to take some xrays (we were assuming it was going to be pneumonia again) and get us settled in, because we weren’t going anywhere that night.  I left Luke with Piper, I took Addy to dinner, went home and packed my bag.  I changed Addy into pajamas, ran back up to the hospital, sent Addy and Luke home and settled in with Piper.

Low-and-behold, her xrays were clear.  There was some junk, but just viral crud.  We stayed the night at the urgent care (which is nice for urgent care- private bathroom, pull out couch, etc.) but not as nice as the actual hospital.  Saturday, we were expecting to get a foot and a half of snow with blizzard conditions.  I asked (begged) to be transferred to the main campus on Friday so that, just in case Piper went downhill again like she did last time, we’d be there instead of having to get there in a blizzard.  There was no resistance at all, which was nice, but we did have to wait for a bed.  Late that afternoon, she got transferred down to the main campus.

And there we sat for another four nights.  I was glad we got moved.  It was rather anticlimactic- she didn’t even need an IV this time (she barely skated by without one), and kept her oxygen at a fairly moderate rate (only got up to about 2 1/2 liters.)  She was “moderately” sick, but not even close to how sick she got this fall.  I kept waiting for her to get sicker, but thankfully it never happened. 

They did do a viral panel because of her history- they were concerned that pneumonia would develop, so knowing if there was a virus, and what it was, could help decide how concerned to be.  Come to find out, she had THREE viruses- RSV, Rhinovirus, and coronavirus.  No wonder she was sick!

She got discharged on Tuesday- with continuous oxygen.  She’s over the cannula, so it’ll be interesting having her at home.  We’ll see how it goes.  We’re glad to be under the same roof again, and really glad that she didn’t get any sicker than she did!

On a side note, we learned that Piper is really good at playing Memory!