Never Say Never.....

This story could potentially be longer than the rash novel, so I will try to sum it up quickly. The 36 hours from thursday afternoon to friday night went something like this...

Thursday 12:00 p.m. I am eating lunch with some friends, and of course we are talking about kids. Catherine Khalstorf and Leigh Ann Wise are talking about ear infections and tubes. I ignorantly said, "We have just been so blessed with illnesses, I don't even know where the ENT (ear, nose and throat clinic for you non-moms reading) is in Tupelo. We have NEVER been there!!
4 p.m.- I go to pick the girls up from mothers day out. The teachers in Mary Elliotts class said she had a high fever and had a few episodes during the day where her hands, legs and feet turned blue. I was concerned obviously. Made a dr. appointment for the next morning just in case. Went home, gave tylenol, she napped for 2 hours. Woke up fine.
6 p.m.- I decided she was fine since she was eating a great supper, it must have just been really cold in her classroom.
6:30 p.m. Frank and I noticed she was starting to turn a little blue and she was making a very wierd throat clearing noise. We were starting to get alarmed.
7:00 p.m. - repeat the same thing
7:30 p.m. she seems fine.
8:00 p.m. -She goes to bed.
10:00 p.m. -fever gets up to 102. More motrin, sleeps all night
11:00 p.m.- Allie decides to get in on the action and is up for almost an hour. Bad dreams I guess...
7:30 a.m.- Mary Elliott wakes up. Is fine all morning.
10:00 a.m.- Go to the doctor. Relay the whole episodes to him, he is greatly concerned. My worry gets a little greater. He thinks there might be a foreign body in her throat, lung, or somewhere not good!
What??????????? Now this is my child who is JUST learning to pick things up, she is quite behind in feeding herself puffs, cheerios, etc.... how in the WORLD would a foreign body get in her mouth? At this point too I am also pegging the poor child in her mothers day out class that MUST have stuck something in my poor baby's mouth.
11:00 a.m. (because of course we had to wait a while!) we start the x-ray process. If you had ever had to hold your 8 mo. old down while they do x-rays I am SO sorry.
11:30- nothing showed on the x-ray. Dr. Ueltschey is listening to her lungs one more time. "they just sound a little to musical for me" he says. Musical? I'm thinking??? Then the wierd clearing the throat noise happens. He is more concerned. Back to the x-ray room for a close up x-ray of the throat.
12:00 - x ray clear.
12:01- Me, 'what the heck is going on????????
12:02 - Dr. wants us to go straight to the ENT clinic. "they can look more in depth in her throat, they can scope it" He says. I am still quite niave, I didn't know at this point what a scope was.
12:30 - I call Frank quite irritated, concerned, and all around confused. I beg him to come home from Oxford. He is not alarmed and proceeds to eat his lunch in peace.
Note** Mary Elliott has normally had a 2 hour morning nap at this point and her lunch all of which are out the window so you can imagine her state.
other Note*** A BIG thankyou to Mika and Leigh Ann who got Allie, packed her lunch and took her to the park with them. Fed her, bathed the 10 lbs of sand out of her hair and took complete care of her. Friends like these are priceless! Especially when you don't have family close by in an emergency!
12:45- Arrive at the ENT. Get the 20 minutes of paperwork and junk out of the way all while holding a SCREAMING baby.
1:00 I am really hoping that Frank's lunch tasted good.
1:15- Sweet, Sweet, Sweet Dr. Ryan Simmons comes in(whom i already have confidence in because he and his wife are friends of ours), asks all the obvious questions, hears the whole blue extremeties, clearing throat, musical lungs story and then says "I think she needs to be scoped" Me-" What does scoped mean.?" Well, he says, "we will have to numb her nose and throat, then put and long tube with camera attached to the end and see if there are any foreign bodies obstructing her airway, esophogus, etc... He then proceeds to tell me all the physical things that could be attributing to these symptoms."
Me- "I'm sorry, what did you just say? You're putting a camera where?"
1:20 I really wished I had payed better attention in biology class because I didn't understand a word he just sayed.
1:30- The torture begins. The nurse is helping me hold my poor, clueless, hungry, tired and sick baby while still sweet, but not her favorite guy right now, Dr. Simmons numbs her nose and throat with a large glass jar with a gun type end filled with afrin and porticaine.
1:40- The just down right cruelty starts. Nurse is back, I have her hands and body while she has Mary Elliotts head. Dr. puts this camera thingy on his head and starts the tube down Mary Elliotts nose. Note** I am not thinking nice words about my absent husband who could have easily made it back from Oxford by now. He is looking down her nose, nothing foreign.... throat, nothing foreign... esophagus, nothing foreigh.... gets to voice box, nothing foreign. Her larnyx however, nothing foreign, but it is short. Short? A short larnyx? I didn't even know larnyx's had a certain length, much less a length that you could spot on a camera, attached to a tube down and squirmy, screaming 8 mo. old. I am completely confused at this point and then more big words that i don't understand start. I am also sweating from every part of my body. Haven't eaten all day and am shaking; pretty sure that my blood sugar level is somwhere around 5.
1:45- Diagnosis: No foreign bodies (sorry kid that i pegged for shoving a piece of plastic down my babies mouth) She has a shortened larnyx and is having laryngo spasms (spasms of the larynx). This is something that is relatively common and she will outgrow. However, she aslo has acid reflux and the acid has been irritating the larnyx, causing it to be inflamed which is why the spasms got so bad that she had restricted breathing and turned blue for a little while.
Wow. Medical knowledge is quite amazing these days.
1:50 - And just so you'll have some icing on the cake, she has bronchitus, which is the reason for the musical lungs.

Aren't you glad you read my blog??

So, we now take even MORE prevacid to help prevent the larnyx from getting inflamed, antibiotic and breathing treatments 3 times a day for 5 days.

3:00 p.m. - We get Allie, get home and all 3 nap for MAYBE an hour. (They usually both nap for about 2-3 hours each afternoon)

Whew. What a day... I hope Frank is having a BLAST in Oxford.

5:00 p.m. Frank gets home from work only for me to send him on a wild goose chase for a breathing machine, lots of medications and milk.
6:00 p.m. We start the process of the nebulizer. not fun.
8:00 p.m. I grab my keys and head out the door to Lowes. Yes, I know, Lowes on a Friday night isn't exactly fun, but I needed a moment by myself and we had a BIG yard day planned for Saturday so I decided to go ahead and throw my money at Lowes and by the plants that I'm sure I will kill in 3 months anyway.
9:00 p.m. Frank calls to tell me to bring home a bag of ice (our ice machine is broken)
9:15 p.m. I swing through the Chevron, buy a bag of ice and go home.
9:30 p.m. I start unloading the plants and wonder, where is my ice? Where the heck is that ice?
Yep.... you got it.... I went in the gas station, paid for a bag of ice, and somehow, between the cash registar and my car I forget that stupid bag of ice. How, HOW does this happen?
9:45 p.m.- Go back to Chevron, get the ice, pray that the cashier is a mother and understands the craziness of being a mom.

Lesson Learned. I will never say never about any type of doctor!

10:00 p.m. Walk in the door, swallow a large ambien (yes i love these pills) and call it a day......

Final Note** Frank is sorry He didn't take me seriously and come home. He is forgiven.






Through all of this, I did get one picture. Just look, LOOK at my poor baby with her chicken mask doing her breathing treatment. She is such a trooper.