Avery's Adventure: It's Christmas, must be time to get sick

Poor Avery! She started out coughing a little bit on Monday night. She went to preschool and daycare on Tuesday. On Tuesday, I picked her up from daycare and they told me she was coughing the whole day. I took her temp that night and it was 100.4. She stayed home from school and daycare Wed. On Thursday she seemed to be getting worse instead of better. I heard her coughing all night on Thursday. There isn't much to do for a young child when they are coughing besides a humidifier. We also gave her Tylenol because still had a fever. She ended up seeing the doctor on Friday. She had a chest xray and was diagnosed with pneumonia :(

They prescribed her an antibiotic and breathing treatments. She had a breathing treatment at her appointment and Tim said she seemed to already be feeling better after it. On Saturday, she ended up taking a 3.5 hour nap..which she never takes naps on the weekends. Besides that, she was acting normal except for coughing/stuffiness. The few days prior, you could tell she was sick and was just laying around.

We then noticed Reagan seemed to not be feeling well. She was sleeping most of the day on Saturday. On Sunday, we went to Tim's parents house and Reagan's apnea monitor kept going off. We checked the leads and they seemed ok. That night, her monitor was going off every 10 minutes. Tim and I switched off holding her upright because that seemed to be how she slept best. If we laid her flat in her pack n play, she would cry and fuss. If we placed her in her rock-n-play, her apnea monitor would go off. She slept great laying on our chest while we reclined on the couch.

We decided to take her to Hillcrest ER in the morning on 12/26. They did two different respiratory panel nasal swabs; one that could tell if she had RSV or the the flu and another that took a few days but could tell if she had other respiratory viruses such as adnovirus, rhinovirus and bronchiolitis. Her RSV test came back positive. It was definitely a good decision bringing her to the hospital. They decided to admit her for observation. She was doing well except for being lethargic, coughing, congestion and not eating well. The first day or two, she did well but by Tuesday, she needed oxygen. She also kept having bradys, where her heart rate would drop. On Wednesday morning they decided that she needed more help than they could provide and transferred her downtown to the main campus PICU.(pediatric intensive care unit).

Since arriving at the picu, she now has an IV and is on a lot of oxygen...40% with a ram cannula. A ram cannula is different than a normal nasal cannula because it provides pressure to help open up her lungs. She is on caffiene to try to help with the bradys. She is getting sugar water through her IV. She is not allowed to eat by mouth because the cannula could cause her to aspirate, drawing fluid into her lungs.

Today during rounds they said they are going to slowly start trying to decrease her oxygen. They are also going to give her an IV with some potassium. She does seem a lot more active today which is a good thing. She has been pretty lethargic the past few days.

Here are a few pics from the rough time we had last week. My next update I will include a lot of cute pics of Avery with Reagan and some from Christmas :)

I was not feeling very well last week :(