Trip to the ER

This week has been pretty hard. Maddy began showing signs of a little cold on Monday. She just had a small cough and a runny nose. On Wednesday when I dropped her off at my Mom's house before going to work I noticed that she was starting to sound a little bit wheezy. I told my Mom that she was probably going to need a breathing treatment. I talked to my Mom later in the day and she said that her breathing seemed heavy and she was still wheezing so she had been giving her breathing treatments, she had my Aunt Sandi come over to look at her (she's an RN) and she said that I should probably take her into the doctor when I got off work. I called the doctor, left work a little early and headed to pick her up and take her to the pediatrician.

When I got there she had gotten worse and by the time we got into the room at the pediatricians office her breathing was really bad. When the nurse came in I told her that I thought Maddy was going to need a breathing treatment now-before waiting for the doctor to come in because she was breathing really hard. She said ok went and got the pulse ox thing for her finger. She slipped it on her finger and a few seconds later left the room very quickly saying, "I'm going to go get the doctor" Next thing we know Dr. Benitiz is flying into the room and hooking Maddy up to oxygen through a nasal canula and giving her a nebulizer treatment at the same time. I was scared to death. I knew that it wasn't good, the doctor and 2 nurses were running around getting everything set up and I was sitting with Maddy in my arms crying as she was flailing around because she was kinda panicking from not getting enough oxygen. I finally got her calmed down by holding her close and saying, "Shhh...shhh...shhhh" over and over softly this always calms her. Once she had the oxygen on for a little bit and the nebulizer treatment over she calmed down and her breathing seemed much better.

Dr. Benitez checked her and said she sounded much better and more open but she was going to have to be monitored overnight. If she happened to continue needing oxygen again she would have to be transported to the hospital because when you need oxygen like like your can "crash" quickly. This really freaked me out and I said whatever we need to do , do it. If you think she may need to go to the hospital we can just go there now. He said let's wait and see if we can get it under control here first because they may just send you home if she is doing ok like she is right now.

We settled in at out doctors office they have a TV in the room and Maddy seemed to do better. They checked her and she was getting tight again so they gave the a steroid. Then when Dr. Benitez came in a bit later to check her, her Pulse-Ox (oxygen) numbers were too low again and she needed oxygen again (although to look at her she looked way better than before) so he said, "She has to go to the hospital now." He called Wolfson's and they sent the transport team over to pick us up at our doctors office. When they arrived the EMT's all came in the room and had on masks, it was scary and just seeing that made me tear up. They then put the electrodes on her tummy and chest and Maddy was just holding onto me while they did this and quietly watching them. Next they had to strap her into the stretcher the stretcher had like car seat type straps. She started crying at this time and looking at me holding out her arms towards me saying, "Momma, Momma, Momma!!!!" I thought my heart was going to break. To see her like that just about killed me! Then the EMT's told me that I could ride with them but I had to ride in the front and couldn't ride with her in the back!!!!! At this point I totally fell apart, Maddy was continuing to cry and call and reach for me and I felt SOOOO bad! I gave her a ton of kisses and we got in the ambulance to leave.

As we drove to the hospital I prayed to God please let her be ok, and I thought of Tyler. I thought ok big brother watch over your Mad's she needs you! We got to the hospital and I jumped out of the ambulance to see Maddy. They told me that she did great and watched Shrek the whole way there and her oxygen numbers were doing really good, she didn't need it. Once we got to the hospital she was doing much better, we stayed and they monitored her for about 5 hours during which time she didn't need any more oxygen or breathing treatments. They think that the steroids finally had kicked in. They finally released us to go home at about 2:00 in the morning.

I am happy to say that Maddy is now doing MUCH MUCH better!!!! She still has a little cold and is taking breathing treatments but isn't needing them very often and hopefully in another few days or a week she will be completely off the breathing treatments. I am however concerned that she could possibly be developing asthma. It runs in our family and because she was preemie and had RSV last year at this time I am planning on making an appointment with a pulmonologist to see if they can give me any insight into why she has had these issues multiple times and/or if she had asthma/ what an I do to prevent this. Sooooo..... whew it's been a crazy few days!

Two pics I took on my i-phone while we were at the hospital waiting for Maddy's chest x-ray to come back and trying our hardest to keep little Mad's entertained! Thank goodness for the portable DVD player, she had the wires attached to monitor her so she couldn't get out of the bed and boy did she want to!

Going through this has just made me think again about how blessed we are to have Maddy. When you have lost a child you are so much more aware I think of just how fragile life is and how we don't have any guarantees in life. Thank you GOD for watching over our precious little girl AND taking care of our little boy until we meet again.