I titled this post "Our First Hospital Stay" not because I'm a pessimist but because I'm a realist and realistically we will see the doors of Children's Liberty again. You hope your child will never be sick enough to be hospitalized, but when it happens and you realize it will be days before you can go home you breathe a sigh of relief because you are no longer alone. Now you have a full team of medical personnel monitoring your child and there is no better place you could possibly be. You rest in that assurance and let out the breathe you've been holding since you walked through the hospital doors.
Zara was supposed to get tubes on Friday December 13th, the day we left for vacation with my family. The procedure only takes a few minutes and the anesthesia wears off pretty quickly for someone of Zara's size. Monday of that week her cough ramped up and her work of breathing was concerning. She started pulling at her ear and was obviously not feeling well. We went to the doctor and confirmed she had an ear infection. The doctor was concerned with her breathing. She was working too hard. They did a breathing treatment at the office which seemed to help. They prescribed an inhaler and said we should use it if her breathing became too labored like this. She stayed home from day care for a few days with Mimi. We never ended up using the inhaler. She seemed better; back to her usual happy self. We cancelled the procedure but went on vacation. She was on antibiotics for the ear infection the entire time we were gone and didn't show any signs of straining while breathing. We rescheduled her tubes appointment for Friday December 27th. I wanted to get it done before 2020 started because we'd already met the deductible for the year and I figured the sooner the better because she couldn't go more than a week off antibiotics without getting another ear infection.
On Christmas Eve we had her pre-op physical with her pediatrician to clear her for tubes that Friday. She had been off antibiotics for a few days and did not have an ear infection. Her breathing was good. Her lungs were clear. We were so pleased. Just four more days, baby cakes! You're getting tubes!
Wednesday was Christmas day. The four of us stayed home for a quiet Christmas. No plans. No pomp. No circumstance. Just some hot chocolate cinnamon rolls for breakfast and Christmas movies on Netflix all day.
Thursday we went back to work and the girls went back to day care. Zara was all smiles when I dropped her off in the morning. When I picked her up around 5:30 pm her teacher said she had been fussy most of the day, pulling on her ear, and seemed 'off'. I figured she just had another ear infection. She had a low fever of 100.8 when we got home and was so agitated she only ate a few ounces and fitfully fell asleep around 6:30 pm. She was up screaming at 8. She refused food and was coughing more forcefully than before. With every cough she screamed in pain. I counted her breathes per minute over and over again and it was over 70. After an hour of monitoring symptoms and talking to the after hours nurse at our pediatrician's office we decided a trip to Children's urgent care was warranted. I stayed home with Violet, who was blissfully unaware, and Alex took Zara to urgent care.
I tried to sleep, checking my phone every 20 minutes or so for new messages from Alex. They suctioned her nose twice and did a breathing treatment at urgent care. Alex told me she screamed through all of it. She was diagnosed with bronchiolitis and an ear infection. They gave her Tylenol and made Alex wait almost an hour for the Tylenol to kick in. If she didn't calm down and her breathing didn't improve in an hour she would be admitted. An hour later she was calm and her breathing was better. Alex was sent home with a prescription for an ear infection and told to come back if symptoms did not improve or worsened. They got home around 1 AM. Alex woke me up and said, "Your turn". I thought I would feed her and get her to bed and go back to sleep but she would not eat and she would not sleep. She fitfully threw herself from side to side in my arms and screamed at every cough and whimpered in between. I counted her breathes per minute over and over all night long until the sun came up. Around 3 am I called the after hours nurse. We walked through her symptoms. I made an appointment with her pediatrician at 11:10 that morning. She put a note in their system to cancel the tubes procedure (for the second time) due to illness.
At some point I took a shower and kissed Alex good bye. He took Violet to day care and went to work and I took Zara to the pediatrician's office. I timed the Tylenol so it would wear off around 11. She had a fever and hadn't eaten much over night. I don't remember now what her fever was because it's been too long but I think at that point it was over 102 degrees. She was working hard to breathe and still coughing a lot. The doctor looked at her for two seconds and said "I don't like this." My heart sank. I was hoping she would say "It's just a virus; wait it out," like we had heard so many times before. She watched her breathing and listened to her little lungs for minutes. She gave me a dose of tylenol for her and said we would wait a half hour to see if her breathing improved and her fever went down. She encouraged me to feed her. She wouldn't eat. I held her as she whimpered for 30 minutes. I listened to the crackling in her throat and felt the sharp shallow breathes in her chest against my chest. After 30 minutes her breathing wasn't any better and her fever was still over 101. She said "you need to go to urgent care." "Right now?" I said. "Yes. Don't go home. Call your husband and have him bring you any essentials tonight. I don't see how they won't admit her."
I left the doctor's office and called Alex. It was 12:30 at this point and I hadn't eaten breakfast or lunch. He left work and met me at urgent care with Taco Bell in hand. When she smelled the taco bell she kind of lit up. Energy she hadn't had in over 12 hours came out of her. I said "get me a bottle." She ate 4 ounces before becoming lethargic and uninterested again. We saw multiple doctors and nurses. We sat in urgent care for hours, with her case in "deliberation" before finally being admitted upstairs. Around 2 we called my mom and asked her to come down and get Violet. We were admitted around 5 (if memory serves correctly). She was on low flow oxygen in urgent care. When we got up to the main hospital a respiratory specialist took one look at her and yelled down the hall for some oxygen. She looked at me and said "this child has pneumonia." How can you possibly know that? I thought. Two hours later the chest x-ray came back and sure enough, she had pneumonia. It was also confirmed that she had bronchiolitis and a double ear infection. They were very concerned about her work of breathing and were suctioning every two hours followed by breathing treatments.
She screamed a lot. The first two hours in the hospital room I cried a lot. There were nurses everywhere, all with different orders. I didn't always understand what was going on and in the beginning they really didn't have time to explain everything to me. She had lost weight in the month prior from constantly being sick and on antibiotics. You could see her ribs and backbone. She looked malnourished. The nurses looked worried.
That first night I laid in the chair next to her bed. I couldn't really hold her because of all the cords hooked up to her and they weren't letting me feed her, but she was on iv fluids. I fell in and out of sleep as I watched her numbers all night. Any time her oxygen hose would kink and it would fall down below 90 the alarms would sound and I'd jump up and see if I could fix it before the nurses came rushing in. They continued to suction every two hours, waking her from whatever little bits of sleep she could get, and administered other meds around the clock.
Now it's all a blur. I should have written this post four months ago. At some point Alex's mom came down because we needed more help. I hadn't seen Violet in days and I needed some real sleep. I went home Saturday night to see Violet and sleep in my own bed. Mom and Patti took turns staying at the house and coming to the hospital. Alex worked from the hospital on Monday and Tuesday. I did no work. My boss understood.
Violet was showing similar symptoms Friday and Saturday. I hadn't seen it in person and I figured Alex was overreacting but when I saw her Saturday night I knew he was not overreacting. He brought her in to urgent care on Sunday and she was admitted in the mid-afternoon. Their rooms were just two doors down from each other. Violet didn't have pneumonia but she was admitted to make sure she didn't get pneumonia since she was a couple days behind Zara as far as showing symptoms. At first they didn't think she had an ear infection either, but she kept pulling on her ear and pushing a bottle away during feeds so I asked them to check again. Apparently Violet's ear canals are very difficult to see in. It took two nurses plus me holding her to get her head in the right position to adequately see down into the canal and determine she did actually have an ear infection. They suctioned her every four hours. They were down to every four hours for Zara too and they were letting me feed Zara 2.5-3 ounces every 4 hours and Violet 4 ounces every 4 hours. I could tell they were both so hungry and just mad when I only gave them a few ounces at a time. By Tuesday morning we were allowed to do 5 ounces for Zara and 6 for Violet at every feed along with solids, which was almost a normal amount for them.
Violet only needed low flow oxygen for about 12 hours during her first night there. Zara was on the high flow for several days. I think she switched to low flow on the 4th day and then no flow the 4th night!
Both of them had to be off oxygen with steady vitals and eating without episode for 6 hours before we could talk discharge. By the morning of the 31st Zara was laughing and babbling and playing. Those first laughs after 4 long days of screaming or silence were the most beautiful sounds I think I've ever heard. We got home around 7 PM on New Year's Eve. My mom had gone home that morning but Patti had come back. She helped us unload and wash everything and put our house back together. We opened a bottle of champagne from who knows when and toasted in the New Year at 9 PM and went to bed.
Neither Alex or I had to work on New Year's day so we got one whole day of all being home together soaking up the baby snuggles and praising God for good health. I caught myself just starring at the girls multiple times throughout the day. It was hard to believe mere hours before we were bouncing between two hospital rooms. I cannot say enough about the staff at Children's. There were overwhelming moments where there were 10 nurses, specialists, and doctors in the room all at once having meetings about Zara's condition and determining next steps where I was legitimately afraid. But I knew she was in the best hands possible on this side of eternity and in those moments where fear crept in I prayed.
People have asked me how I stayed so strong and how I "bounced back" like nothing happened. It's not that I am strong, but that I have a Savior who makes me strong when I am weak. I lived by a few simple rules those five days in the hospital:
1. Vacation rules apply for meals - aka eat whatever you want whenever you want. The hospital cafeteria has delicious parfaits. I probably ate at least 5 of them. I got dessert. I ordered room service. I had mom bring me chic-fil-a. These small comforts go a long way to make you forget you're in a hospital.
2. Worship! You cannot worry and worship at the same time. I texted several friends the night this all started. My good friend Alena texted back a prayer of peace and comfort over me and reminded me to worship. I hung onto those words and any time fear crept in, I worshiped. I sing to the girls all the time at home. I sang a LOT over those five days in the hospital. It calmed them and it calmed me and my worried momma heart.
3. Have a routine. I showered every day. I ate 3 meals a day at relatively normal times. I tried to do things that felt "normal" so I wouldn't fall into starring at the minute hand tick by on the clock. I also watched a bunch of new movies to pass the time. (The new Aladdin and Dumbo are really good!)
4. Ask for help and accept help when it comes. You can't do this alone and it's downright stupid to try. I am so thankful for mom and Patti coming down and literally caring for Violet when Zara needed me more, for cleaning my house, bringing me food, sending me home to sleep in my own bed and shower in my own shower.
5. Ask questions and thank your nurses. I asked a lot of questions, and some of them were definitely stupid questions. Sometimes there is so much going on in your brain and you're just trying to absorb the words coming out of the nurse's mouth and you just can't. You ask her to repeat herself like 5 times and she does. And she tells you it's going to be ok.
Zara was supposed to get tubes on Friday December 13th, the day we left for vacation with my family. The procedure only takes a few minutes and the anesthesia wears off pretty quickly for someone of Zara's size. Monday of that week her cough ramped up and her work of breathing was concerning. She started pulling at her ear and was obviously not feeling well. We went to the doctor and confirmed she had an ear infection. The doctor was concerned with her breathing. She was working too hard. They did a breathing treatment at the office which seemed to help. They prescribed an inhaler and said we should use it if her breathing became too labored like this. She stayed home from day care for a few days with Mimi. We never ended up using the inhaler. She seemed better; back to her usual happy self. We cancelled the procedure but went on vacation. She was on antibiotics for the ear infection the entire time we were gone and didn't show any signs of straining while breathing. We rescheduled her tubes appointment for Friday December 27th. I wanted to get it done before 2020 started because we'd already met the deductible for the year and I figured the sooner the better because she couldn't go more than a week off antibiotics without getting another ear infection.
On Christmas Eve we had her pre-op physical with her pediatrician to clear her for tubes that Friday. She had been off antibiotics for a few days and did not have an ear infection. Her breathing was good. Her lungs were clear. We were so pleased. Just four more days, baby cakes! You're getting tubes!
Wednesday was Christmas day. The four of us stayed home for a quiet Christmas. No plans. No pomp. No circumstance. Just some hot chocolate cinnamon rolls for breakfast and Christmas movies on Netflix all day.
Thursday we went back to work and the girls went back to day care. Zara was all smiles when I dropped her off in the morning. When I picked her up around 5:30 pm her teacher said she had been fussy most of the day, pulling on her ear, and seemed 'off'. I figured she just had another ear infection. She had a low fever of 100.8 when we got home and was so agitated she only ate a few ounces and fitfully fell asleep around 6:30 pm. She was up screaming at 8. She refused food and was coughing more forcefully than before. With every cough she screamed in pain. I counted her breathes per minute over and over again and it was over 70. After an hour of monitoring symptoms and talking to the after hours nurse at our pediatrician's office we decided a trip to Children's urgent care was warranted. I stayed home with Violet, who was blissfully unaware, and Alex took Zara to urgent care.
I tried to sleep, checking my phone every 20 minutes or so for new messages from Alex. They suctioned her nose twice and did a breathing treatment at urgent care. Alex told me she screamed through all of it. She was diagnosed with bronchiolitis and an ear infection. They gave her Tylenol and made Alex wait almost an hour for the Tylenol to kick in. If she didn't calm down and her breathing didn't improve in an hour she would be admitted. An hour later she was calm and her breathing was better. Alex was sent home with a prescription for an ear infection and told to come back if symptoms did not improve or worsened. They got home around 1 AM. Alex woke me up and said, "Your turn". I thought I would feed her and get her to bed and go back to sleep but she would not eat and she would not sleep. She fitfully threw herself from side to side in my arms and screamed at every cough and whimpered in between. I counted her breathes per minute over and over all night long until the sun came up. Around 3 am I called the after hours nurse. We walked through her symptoms. I made an appointment with her pediatrician at 11:10 that morning. She put a note in their system to cancel the tubes procedure (for the second time) due to illness.
At some point I took a shower and kissed Alex good bye. He took Violet to day care and went to work and I took Zara to the pediatrician's office. I timed the Tylenol so it would wear off around 11. She had a fever and hadn't eaten much over night. I don't remember now what her fever was because it's been too long but I think at that point it was over 102 degrees. She was working hard to breathe and still coughing a lot. The doctor looked at her for two seconds and said "I don't like this." My heart sank. I was hoping she would say "It's just a virus; wait it out," like we had heard so many times before. She watched her breathing and listened to her little lungs for minutes. She gave me a dose of tylenol for her and said we would wait a half hour to see if her breathing improved and her fever went down. She encouraged me to feed her. She wouldn't eat. I held her as she whimpered for 30 minutes. I listened to the crackling in her throat and felt the sharp shallow breathes in her chest against my chest. After 30 minutes her breathing wasn't any better and her fever was still over 101. She said "you need to go to urgent care." "Right now?" I said. "Yes. Don't go home. Call your husband and have him bring you any essentials tonight. I don't see how they won't admit her."
I left the doctor's office and called Alex. It was 12:30 at this point and I hadn't eaten breakfast or lunch. He left work and met me at urgent care with Taco Bell in hand. When she smelled the taco bell she kind of lit up. Energy she hadn't had in over 12 hours came out of her. I said "get me a bottle." She ate 4 ounces before becoming lethargic and uninterested again. We saw multiple doctors and nurses. We sat in urgent care for hours, with her case in "deliberation" before finally being admitted upstairs. Around 2 we called my mom and asked her to come down and get Violet. We were admitted around 5 (if memory serves correctly). She was on low flow oxygen in urgent care. When we got up to the main hospital a respiratory specialist took one look at her and yelled down the hall for some oxygen. She looked at me and said "this child has pneumonia." How can you possibly know that? I thought. Two hours later the chest x-ray came back and sure enough, she had pneumonia. It was also confirmed that she had bronchiolitis and a double ear infection. They were very concerned about her work of breathing and were suctioning every two hours followed by breathing treatments.
She screamed a lot. The first two hours in the hospital room I cried a lot. There were nurses everywhere, all with different orders. I didn't always understand what was going on and in the beginning they really didn't have time to explain everything to me. She had lost weight in the month prior from constantly being sick and on antibiotics. You could see her ribs and backbone. She looked malnourished. The nurses looked worried.
That first night I laid in the chair next to her bed. I couldn't really hold her because of all the cords hooked up to her and they weren't letting me feed her, but she was on iv fluids. I fell in and out of sleep as I watched her numbers all night. Any time her oxygen hose would kink and it would fall down below 90 the alarms would sound and I'd jump up and see if I could fix it before the nurses came rushing in. They continued to suction every two hours, waking her from whatever little bits of sleep she could get, and administered other meds around the clock.
Now it's all a blur. I should have written this post four months ago. At some point Alex's mom came down because we needed more help. I hadn't seen Violet in days and I needed some real sleep. I went home Saturday night to see Violet and sleep in my own bed. Mom and Patti took turns staying at the house and coming to the hospital. Alex worked from the hospital on Monday and Tuesday. I did no work. My boss understood.
Violet was showing similar symptoms Friday and Saturday. I hadn't seen it in person and I figured Alex was overreacting but when I saw her Saturday night I knew he was not overreacting. He brought her in to urgent care on Sunday and she was admitted in the mid-afternoon. Their rooms were just two doors down from each other. Violet didn't have pneumonia but she was admitted to make sure she didn't get pneumonia since she was a couple days behind Zara as far as showing symptoms. At first they didn't think she had an ear infection either, but she kept pulling on her ear and pushing a bottle away during feeds so I asked them to check again. Apparently Violet's ear canals are very difficult to see in. It took two nurses plus me holding her to get her head in the right position to adequately see down into the canal and determine she did actually have an ear infection. They suctioned her every four hours. They were down to every four hours for Zara too and they were letting me feed Zara 2.5-3 ounces every 4 hours and Violet 4 ounces every 4 hours. I could tell they were both so hungry and just mad when I only gave them a few ounces at a time. By Tuesday morning we were allowed to do 5 ounces for Zara and 6 for Violet at every feed along with solids, which was almost a normal amount for them.
Violet only needed low flow oxygen for about 12 hours during her first night there. Zara was on the high flow for several days. I think she switched to low flow on the 4th day and then no flow the 4th night!
Both of them had to be off oxygen with steady vitals and eating without episode for 6 hours before we could talk discharge. By the morning of the 31st Zara was laughing and babbling and playing. Those first laughs after 4 long days of screaming or silence were the most beautiful sounds I think I've ever heard. We got home around 7 PM on New Year's Eve. My mom had gone home that morning but Patti had come back. She helped us unload and wash everything and put our house back together. We opened a bottle of champagne from who knows when and toasted in the New Year at 9 PM and went to bed.
Neither Alex or I had to work on New Year's day so we got one whole day of all being home together soaking up the baby snuggles and praising God for good health. I caught myself just starring at the girls multiple times throughout the day. It was hard to believe mere hours before we were bouncing between two hospital rooms. I cannot say enough about the staff at Children's. There were overwhelming moments where there were 10 nurses, specialists, and doctors in the room all at once having meetings about Zara's condition and determining next steps where I was legitimately afraid. But I knew she was in the best hands possible on this side of eternity and in those moments where fear crept in I prayed.
People have asked me how I stayed so strong and how I "bounced back" like nothing happened. It's not that I am strong, but that I have a Savior who makes me strong when I am weak. I lived by a few simple rules those five days in the hospital:
1. Vacation rules apply for meals - aka eat whatever you want whenever you want. The hospital cafeteria has delicious parfaits. I probably ate at least 5 of them. I got dessert. I ordered room service. I had mom bring me chic-fil-a. These small comforts go a long way to make you forget you're in a hospital.
2. Worship! You cannot worry and worship at the same time. I texted several friends the night this all started. My good friend Alena texted back a prayer of peace and comfort over me and reminded me to worship. I hung onto those words and any time fear crept in, I worshiped. I sing to the girls all the time at home. I sang a LOT over those five days in the hospital. It calmed them and it calmed me and my worried momma heart.
3. Have a routine. I showered every day. I ate 3 meals a day at relatively normal times. I tried to do things that felt "normal" so I wouldn't fall into starring at the minute hand tick by on the clock. I also watched a bunch of new movies to pass the time. (The new Aladdin and Dumbo are really good!)
4. Ask for help and accept help when it comes. You can't do this alone and it's downright stupid to try. I am so thankful for mom and Patti coming down and literally caring for Violet when Zara needed me more, for cleaning my house, bringing me food, sending me home to sleep in my own bed and shower in my own shower.
5. Ask questions and thank your nurses. I asked a lot of questions, and some of them were definitely stupid questions. Sometimes there is so much going on in your brain and you're just trying to absorb the words coming out of the nurse's mouth and you just can't. You ask her to repeat herself like 5 times and she does. And she tells you it's going to be ok.
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