A Sick Little Girl

Dale and I woke up early yesterday morning and realized Adelaida had a fever, and that it was high enough to warrant giving her a fever reducer to keep it at a reasonable level. This wasn't too unusual, as she's been pretty sick for the past ten months and often has high fevers. I called her school and told them that she wouldn't be in today, gave her ibuprofen, and put her back to bed. Two hours later she was awake again, and this time I realized that this was more than just another cold. She was burning up (her temperature was 104.6F even after taking the ibuprofen two hours before) and was having trouble breathing -- she was breathing very rapidly, almost gasping for breath, and her nostrils were flaring with each breath.

I looked at her chest to see if she was using her rib muscles to breathe (she wasn't, which was a good sign) and called our nurse helpline. They recommended that we get to the nearest hospital as soon as possible, so I loaded Adelaida into the car and went straight to the hospital. (Of course it was snowing and the roads were very slick, and Dale was already on a flight headed toward California for the week for work. But I remained calm and we got to the hospital without any incident.)

Once they got us checked in at the pediatric urgent care, we were given a room almost immediately and Adelaida was given more medicine to reduce her fever. The nurse who checked us in was sufficiently worried to have another nurse look at Adelaida before leaving us, and a doctor came into the room just a few minutes later. It was the fastest service I've ever had at the pediatric urgent care center!

The doctor listened to Adelaida's breathing and to my recital of events and concluded that she had a respiratory virus called RSV. RSV is very common and can range from mild (nothing more than cold-like symptoms) to severe (requiring several days' worth of hospitalization with oxygen given through a ventilator). Adelaida's RSV seemed to be somewhere in the middle -- she was obviously having trouble breathing and her lips actually turned blue while we were with the doctor because she wasn't getting enough oxygen. He set her up with oxygen and we sat in the exam room for a couple of hours just letting Adelaida breathe oxygen-rich air. After several hours of this, we saw the doctor again and were released, with a long list of things for me to watch for that would necessitate taking her back in.

Because RSV is a virus, nothing can really be done for it except to give the kids oxygen if needed. However, Adelaida also had an ear infection, so we picked up some antibiotics on the way home and got her started on antibiotics last night. She is still having trouble breathing today, but is otherwise doing much better -- she even ate about 1/4 of a banana and a few dices of tomato today (she didn't eat anything all day yesterday!).

The silver lining to this cloud is that Adelaida lets me hold her while she's sick -- she doesn't exactly cuddle, but she sat on my lap with her head leaning back against my chest for hours in the hospital yesterday, and wants me to hold her while I'm walking around at home, as shown in the pictures here. Of course I hate to see her sick, but do enjoy holding her close to me!