If you don't have anything nice to say...

I haven't updated Gracelyn's blog for a while because 1: I haven't had time because of what I am about to post about and 2: I don't really have anything nice to say. However, for journaling sake I will record our past two weeks.

We have had a couple rough weeks at our house. Mr. C came down with a nasty cold a couple weeks ago. I tried my hardest to keep him from Grace, but as I am pushing him away from her to keep distance between them and he looks at me with his sweet eyes and says, "Mom I just want to love her..." all I could do was to pray to Heavenly Father to keep her healthy while her brother "loves her." As hard as I tried, I didn't manage to keep her from getting his cold.

I let a week or so go by. Mr. C managed to kick his cold, but I watched as Grace kept getting worse. I monitored her O2 and watched it drop from the 90's to 70's. She has never been "sick" and I wasn't sure just how far to push without the doctor seeing her. Once I saw that 75% I decided we needed to be seen. Last Wednesday we had quite the day. I drug my kids from the ER(just to check her sats), to pediatrician, to home health care, to x-rays, back to the ER, to Respiratory therapist, then meet with the pediatrician again and finally to the pharmacy before we were able to go home. (But not with out a stop to get a McDonald's kid's meal) Gracelyn was screaming the whole time and Mr. C was an angel for me. (Usually I don't drag him along, but Grandma was out of town at girls camp. She still feels bad.) I'm so lucky to have such a GREAT boy!

Gracelyn's pediatrician was concerned with her sats. He didn't think the cold was causing it. While in his office we put her back on oxygen, 2 liters. After 5 minutes we couldn't get it to go up. He sent us to the hospital to get x-rays and meet with the respiratory therapist. When I walked in for x-rays the technician saw her chest and said you are probably used to this and we don't need to worry about any surprises. Of course not. When she is hospitalized at PCMC they do chest x-rays every morning. WRONG. They do them different at McKay Dee. They use, what I have now learned is called, the pigg-o-stat. This is a picture I took of her while in it...
It isn't a very good picture so I found one on the internet. What the...?!?! Really!?!?It looks awful. Like they stuff them down into a tube, but I must admit it holds the child still so they can get a good picture of the chest. So, not only did I have to watch as my child is put in this, but they tell me, "Here Mom, hold her arms up while we get her in it." Then I have to stand behind the wall and watch and she is screaming "Mama, mama, mama!"

Long story short...x-rays looked great, sats continued to stay low. The doctor gave me the option to admit her and have them monitor her or take her home and keep an eye on her. I chose not to admit her. I felt it would be worse and just expose her to more. All they would do is keep her up all night checking vitals. I have everything I need, but blood pressure, to watch her from home. The next morning our pediatrician called and said he was worried about her hematocrit level and her being dehydrated. He gave me 24 hours to get some fluid in her and if it didn't work we would admit her and get and IV in. I gave her all the pedialyte she would take and 24 hours later she was sating at 87%! Wahoo!

A couple days went by and just as I think she is getting better she had an awful night. She was up the whole night screaming. I would feed her (it usually calms her) and put her in her bed. Minutes later she was screaming again. Jeff even got up a couple times to try and calm her. We made it through the night, but the following night was worse. Something was wrong. We could tell something was hurting her. We gave her Tylenol and we all got a good two hours sleep. Then more screaming. Finally I sat her up. The screaming stopped. I sat her up against our cushioned head board and she calmed down. Eventually she fell asleep there until morning when the crying started again. We woke up to a yucky goopey ear. I called the doctor and they called a couple anti-biotics in. Hours later I went to pick the prescriptions up and while we were there she woke up screaming and had blood and gunk draining out of her ear. I went straight to an after hour clinic to find she had a ruptured ear drum. BLAH! Please give my little lady a break!

The last two nights have been much better. She only woke up twice each night. Hopefully she is on her way to healing!