Pneumonia or something like it

Right after the girls' first week of preschool, they all got sick. It started with Rachel. She had a runny nose and a cough that got worse on Valentines day night. Then Sophia and Morgan had it the next day. I thought it was just a common cold, but a few days in, they all developed fevers. A few days later on Friday, Rachel wasn't herself at all. She was barely awake laying around. It suddenly dawned on me that this was the same way she acted last year when she was diagnosed with pneumonia. I was lucky to get her an appointment for that afternoon.

Just like last year, Dr. A didn't hear anything suspicious, but sent us for an x ray to be sure. She had some crud in both sides of her lungs. After a lengthy conversation with Dr. A, we decided to go ahead and try oral antibiotics. I was hopeful that we'd be able to slip the medicine into her milk or juice since forcing it in her mouth with a medicine dropper is not an option given her feeding issues. I was really upset when we got home and she immediately detected that her milk was um.... flavored. I should have known better. I tried putting it in juice. FAIL.. So I tried putting it in her strawberry banana baby food. Also a big fat FAIL. I knew that if we couldn't get the meds in her orally, we'd have to opt for several days of injections instead. I even ended up calling the advice line and got another doctor to prescribe a medication that apparently didn't have a flavor. Bob went to the pharmacy at around 10pm so we'd have it for her first thing in the morning. We had a back up plan and made an appointment at the weekend clinic for Saturday morning in case we needed to do the injections. I really just wish they made flavorless antibiotics though! Ugh!

That night, she wasn't doing so well. Her fever went up and she was breathing really fast. I ended up posting something on Facebook about how she was doing, and my awesome friend (who is also an ER doctor) ended up coming over to our house....at 11 at night... to check on Rachel and make sure we could wait until morning to take her in to start medication. I'm so lucky to have such a caring and wonderful friend! I am just thankful that she came over. I was able to calm down and not worry so much knowing that she'd be okay.

So of course we couldn't get the second medication in her either. She is very sensitive to any flavors being added to any of her drinks or food. Having recently spent almost one thousand dollars on her feeding therapy over the past few months (out of pocket), we were not about to force feed her anything. We know from experience that it would just set her back. She's come too far in her therapy and we're very much invested in her progress. I ended up taking her in to the weekend clinic to start injections. The pediatrician who treated her irritated the heck out of me. She tried to talk me out of doing shots and forcing Rachel to take the oral medication. She gave me advice about how to hold a child down and make them swallow medicine. It took me a while to make her understand that we can't do that as it could cause a long term food strike or ruin all of the therapy we've done. I sort of felt like crap for subjecting my child to several days of shots. Surprisingly, Rachel did really well with the shots.

On Sunday morning, Sophia woke up and was just about as out of it as Rachel had been the day before. So off to the weekend clinic we went. Sophia didn't even need an x-ray, the doctor could hear the crud in her lungs and sent us home with antibiotics too. When we got home, Morgan wasn't looking good. I ended up calling the clinic again, but they were then closed. So I spoke with an advice nurse and she sent us to the ER since Morgan's breathing was pretty fast.  Thankfully, my friend was working that day and kept me company during our visit. Morgan's x-ray didn't look too good either. I'm told it could have been pneumonia or just viral crud, so we were going to treat with antibiotics either way. Thankfully, Morgan and Sophia have no issues taking their medicine orally.

We ended up having to go to the doctor's office for 4 days in a row for Rachel's injections. With all three girls so sick, I hardly got any sleep at all. It was a really miserable week. I ended up getting a slight cold myself. I think we had some sort of flu. My mom was around us the whole time, and Morgan even coughed in her face on more than one occasion. She never got sick since she had a flu shot. I'm kicking myself for not doing flu shots this year. I usually always do them. With the girls' developmental delays and all the crap we've been through, I let it get in my head that a stupid flu shot or vaccines could be the cause of our issues. Ugh...  So I kept putting flu shots off. Even Bob got sick, it was just a few days after the girls were better.

I'm happy to say that the girls are all healthy again and went to school all this week. Rachel is doing really well in her class. I'm told she follows directions pretty well and is happy.  I've noticed some pretty good changes with her language over the past week too. She's using more words than she has before and is stringing two and three words together now, which is a very big step for her. Sophia and Morgan love their class too. They are working on taking turns and using words instead of screaming out of frustration. I love the girls' teachers and am comforted by how well things are going for them right now. It was a tough transition out of their therapy program.... well, it was tough for me. I think the girls had an easier time with it than I did. Although, I must admit that it has been nice not having people in and out of my house anymore. I don't have to worry about the house being put together or not.

I know it's just a matter of time before the next virus or cold hits our household. Preschool is a germ infested place....blah.........At least the girls will get some immunities built up before they start kindergarten.

(I'm too tired to proof read this......)