The Martin's: Hospital stay

On sunday, Ella woke up with a cough, but she had no other symptoms. She was still running around acting like the cute little monkey she is. On Monday, she still had the cough and for a few hours that was still her only symptom. I decided to make an appointment for early in the evening, just to be safe. One minute she was playing, and the next, she was laying down and I could tell she didn't feel good. I debated taking her to the doctor earlier, but, decided to keep my 5:30 appointment. As the day went on, she was coughing like crazy and laying around, mostly wanting mommy to hold her. When I took her in at 5:30, I thought it would be a quick appointment. I thought the doctor would tell me it was Croup, and then we would be on our way home, this was not the case, unfortunately. The pediatrician checked her oxygen levels and we discovered that she wasn't getting enough oxygen. They did two breathing treatments on her, which she HATED, and her oxygen levels still weren't going up. The doctor told me she needed to go have a chest X-ray taken, and then they would do another breathing treatment, if her oxygen levels did not go up, the doctor said she would have to go to the hospital. At this point, I lost it. My mom happened to call, as I was walking to get her X-rays taken, to see what I found out at the dr. as soon as I answered the phone I started to cry. My mom reassured me that if she did have to go to the hospital, she would be ok and that is where they could take the best care of her. Luckily my mom happened to be close by and came to be with me...Nick was still at work, and I needed someone to calm me down. The X-rays didn't show any Pneunmonia, thank goodness. Back at the pediatrician's, they did another breathing treatment, which brought her oxygen levels back up for a few minutes. The dr still didn't feel comfortable sending her home, so she had us wait there for a while while she monitored her oxygen. For a while we thought she was doing ok and that we would be going home. Then they started to drop again so the doctor said we needed to go to Primary Children's Medical Center. This of course brought on more tears from me!! Unfortunately, they wouldn't allow me to drive her there, she had to be taken by ambulance, which is just part of their policy. When the EMT's got there, Ella was scared, she knew something was going on, but she isn't old enough to understand it. One of them found her a stuffed animal, which made her pretty happy. They strapped her carseat to the gurney (not sure on the spelling) and wheeled her out to the ambulance, luckily they let me ride in there with her so she wasn't too scared. They didn't have to use the sirens or anything like that, but it was still intimidating and scary for a little girl. Not to mention the fact that it made mommy a little carsick. When we got to the emergency room, they hooked her up to monitors and she still wasn't getting enough oxygen and her respiratory rate was really high. Meaning she was working way too hard to breathe. They did some more breathing treatments, did a horrible test that involved sticking a long tube down both of her nostrils, to find out exactly what it was she had, and after what seemed like FOREVER, decided to admit her. Several hours later, we were taken to her room, where she was hooked up to some more monitors. By this time it was about 3:00 am and Nick and I were exhausted, poor Ella was exhausted and scared as well. She wouldn't let go of me. She had to have breathing treatments every two hours, and she had the little oxygen tube in her nose. It was so sad to see our baby girl so sick. While they were doing the test with the tubes in her nose, and putting in an IV, she just cried and screamed "Mommy" the whole time. I had to hold her down while they did this and she just looked at me and cried. Which made me cry. I thought they would release her the next day, however, I was wrong. She was running a fever and still not getting enough oxygen. I was so upset. Not only had I not had any sleep, but, seeing my sweet angel like that was heartbreaking, and I missed Jaxson. I was torn, I wanted, and needed to be at the hospital with Ella, but I also needed to see Jax. Tuesday evening, my Mom came to see Ella and her and Nick convinced me to go home for a few hours. They wanted me to get some sleep, but I told them that if I was going anywhere, it was to see Jax for a while and shower. It felt good to see Jax for a couple of hours and be able to shower and get a few things from home. Still, I could not get back to the hospital soon enough. Late tuesday night, the nurse came in and said that her test results were back and that she was Influenza A positive, meaning Swine Flu. Luckily the doctors decided to start her on Tamiflu before they even knew what she had. On Wednesday, she started showing signs of improvement. Her oxygen levels were slowly getting better and her respiratory rate was slowly going down. They decided to start slowly turning down the oxygen to see how she would do. Finally at about 3:00 pm they turned her oxygen completely off. I left for a little bit shortly before they turned it off, so I could see Jax and have another shower. When I got back, she had been totally off oxygen for 2 hours and she was still breathing great! One of our neighbors brought a friend up to the hospital to give Ella a blessing. Even though she was getting better, we knew that it couldn't hurt, and it made Nick and I feel better. After the blessing, I just knew my little girl was going to get better quick, and she did! The doctor came in late Wednesday evening and was very happy that she had been breathing room air for at least 4 hours and was still doing great! He asked us when we would like to take her home. While the thought of going home right then was so wonderful, we wanted to make sure that her oxygen levels and respiratory rate would be ok through the night. He told us he would get the discharge papers ready and, if she did ok through the night, we could leave the next morning. Nick and I were so happy!!! She did great all through the night, although her and I didn't get much sleep. I kept waking up to look at the monitors and make sure her oxygen was still good, and she just hated sleeping there, even though I was in the bed with her, she was scared. The next morning the doctor came in and said she was doing great and we could get out of there as soon as all the papers were ready and we had her prescriptions and all the information we needed. She had started to perk up Wednesday night, and by Thursday morning, she was sick of being in the hospital bed! When we got home, I realized how absolutely exhausted I was, mentally and physically. Nick put both Ella and I down for naps! Ella slept for 4 hours and I slept for 3 1/2. I was still in a daze when I woke up, but I felt a little better. Last night we could tell Ella was feeling more and more like herself, and today she has been playing with her toys, running around with her brother being our little monkey. She even has her appetite back! We are so thankful that our little girl is better and that the doctors and nurses took such good care of her!! We are so happy to be home with both of our sweet babies. We have so much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving, and I hope I never have to see either of my sweet angels go through anything like that again!!