First time for everything

Last night we had our first trip to Children's Hospital ER with Hadley.  She had been a little under the weather this past weekend, and I suspected an ear infection.  I took her to our pediatrician on Sunday and sure enough, she had an infected right ear and an upper respiratory infection (ie. a cold).  He sent us home with an antibiotic.  Wednesday evening she started coughing and had a slight wheeze so we asked Brandon's mom if she could watch her on Thursday rather than take her to daycare.  Thankfully she was able to spend the day loving on Hadley.  Hadley seemed to worsen and by the time we both got home from work, her wheezing was pretty bad and she was breathing rapidly.  We called our doctor and they advised us to go to Children's Hospital.

We just had to wait a few minutes before we were taken back into a room.  They took her weight, temperature, and checked her oxygen level.  Then they moved us to another room...

There they suctioned her nose with the hospital grade suction tool - ummmm, where do I sign up for one of these?! That thing was amazing!  The doctor came in and listened to her breathing and wanted to do a breathing treatment on her immediately.  Hadley then had her first breathing treatment, a dose of oral steriods (to help with an inflammed airway), a test for RSV, and then some chest x-rays to check for any abnormalities.  Thankfully the RSV test was negative and the x-ray came back normal.

Warning:  Hadley is not a fan of stethoscopes, x-rays, breathing treatments, rectal thermometers, etc. Haha!  She really did well, all things considered.  The doctors and nurses loved her...I can't get over how sweet they all were with her.  She smiled at then, waved bye-bye every time a nurse would leave the room, and was her sweet self.

By this time it was probably 10 or so in the evening and we were all exhausted!  This is a couple hours past Hadley's bedtime!  The doctor was still thinking at this time they might admit her to the hospital but wanted to try one more breathing treatment to try to moderate the wheezing and rapid breathing.  Hadley had just fallen asleep when they came to do the second round of treatment.  I was worried we would have to wake her up and have another 5-6 minute treatment with her screaming crying (yes, the first treatment was not pretty).  But they said she could sleep right through it, and that she did!  They checked her again at midnight or so and said she had responded so well to the medicine and that we could go home (and with our own fancy breathing machine - a nebulizer - for use every 4 hours for the next several days).   They wanted us to go back to our pediatrician this morning at 9 so they could check her.  So we hurried home and all got some much needed rest!

This morning the pediatrican gave her another breathing treatment and told us to come back Monday for a recheck.  Today was much better with the breathing treatments.  By her third time, she didn't even cry.  We sort of think she is starting to like them :)

 Praying she continues to keep healing.  Thanking God for the wonderful doctors and nurses that took care of her last night and this morning!  I think we are on the mend!