Pneumonia--scary like whoa

On December 18, I got a call from daycare that Cara was running a really high fever and was having difficulty breathing. I was in the middle of giving finals, and Chance was in the middle of graduation from his leadership program at work, so we had to shuffle things around to go pick her up.

I made an appt with the secondary clinic because my doctor was booked, and we ended up being there for a while. Poor Cara was acting OK, but she was really clingy and feverish. Her breathing was raspy and had a hitch at the end of it. Her tummy was distending with her breaths. It was really scary for me to see. Since the clinic we were at isn't primarily a pediatric clinic, they couldn't do rapid flu or rapid RSV tests, so she got a chest X-ray. That was a milestone I wasn't expecting!

They said if there was "gunk" in her chest, it could point to early pneumonia, and if her chest was clear, it could be RSV. Pneumonia can be treated with antibiotics; RSV can't-just treated symptomatically. She did NOT like the X-ray--it was in a scary room, and we had to hold her in different positions on the cold, hard, angular table.

It did look like pneumonia, very early stages, and we got a gamut of drugs. They gave her a heavy duty shot, sent us home with another antibiotic and a recommendation for breathing treatments. Cara and I went the next day to the medical supply store (where I had to hold her without a stroller for 30 minutes while we waited...) to get a nebulizer and mask and tubing.

Ever tried to put a breathing treatment mask on a 16-month-old? Our first attempt was AWFUL. She was scared of the noise and the mask, I tried to hold it on her instead of near her, and I did it alone. Miserable experience for both of us. She got used to it over time, but it was never truly easy.

Her fever subsided fairly quickly, but she had a nasty cough for several days. Finally around Christmas time, she started to get better and we did breathing treatments on an as-needed basis. It took about 10 full days for her to start feeling all better.

This was the sickest she has been so far--more than just a cold or an ear infection, and it was definitely scary. I'm thankful we caught it early and were able to treat it aggressively. And I'm thankful for an easy-going baby who still managed to act mostly like herself through the whole ordeal. I hope we keep her healthy for a long time to come!