The Scariest Night of My Life.

I've been keeping you all updated on the germ warzone that is our home.  Sunday we watched the Patriots lose horribly to those stupid Jets, I made homemade mozzarella sticks from the Deceptively Delicious cookbook, pigs in a blanket, and sauteed sausage, peppers, and onions.  Butterbean had been super clingy and feverish all day, we just figured it was more ear infection/cold crap.  We were giving her Tylenol and Ibuprofen to bring her fever down, but it was 103 and we could only get it down to 100.  She was sitting on the Mister's lap and her breathing was ... loud.  She fell asleep and we laid her in her crib, and when I went in to check on her after we put Mooch to bed she was panting and gasping.  I called the pediatrician and he said get her to the ER, immediately.  I called my parents to come watch Mooch, and Mister stayed with her while I raced 'Bean to the hospital.  The admitting nurse took one look at her and said, bring her back.  The nurse who examined her slapped an oxygen mask on her and took her temp, it was 104.  They took a chest x-ray, then started her on an IV to re-hydrate her.  I felt like an awful Mommy - I swear, I've been getting her to drink water!  The doctor explained because of her fever she was burning fluids faster than she could have possibly taken them in.  The x-ray showed one area of her lungs that was very inflamed, with irritation throughout.  Pneumonia.  The doctor said, we'll have to keep her overnight - do you want to stay?

Is the freakin sky blue?  Does a bear shit in the woods?? 

They got her upstairs in a room.  Every time the oxygen mask wasn't close enough to her face her oxygen saturation rate would drop into the 80's (it's supposed to be high 90's to 100) then an alarm would go off.  Lovely.  I slept with her - well ok, I didn't really sleep - in the big metal crib.  My ass was hanging out for all the world to see and I couldn't get comfortable but there is no place I would have rather been.  For what a vital little thing she usually is - ordering us all around, gulping down food, running instead of walking - she wasn't even speaking, would barely respond to us.  Except for screaming every time a new nurse or doctor came in to poke her.  Then she would yell, "I want Moochie!" :-(  My heart could barely take that.  They came back with the results of her cultures and said she had RSV disease that became viral pneumonia, with a middle ear infection and dehydration.

The next day she was better, though still very lethargic and had no appetite, and I had to prompt her to keep drinking water.  She started spending longer and longer periods off of the oxygen, and that night she slept without it.  During that day when the Mister was with her I slipped home to shower, change clothes, and brush my teeth.  I also grabbed our car DVD player that we use on long trips - that thing was a lifesaver.  She couldn't leave her room because she was so vulnerable to germs, so having all her favorite movies right there was great.  The nurses were amazing too, and brought her anything she requested.  At 8:00 pm that night we were reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar and all of a sudden she sat up and said, "I want CAKE!"  and our nurse went out and tracked that baby down some cake!

The next morning she wanted out of the bed, and I set her on the floor and kept my hands behind her.  She looked up at me and said, "I walkin, Mama!"  I could have just squeezed her to death.  She toddled around on her little wobbly legs until the nurse came in to say the doctors wanted her to stay in bed.  'Bean got all frustrated and tried to pull her IV and monitors out and hollered her head off ... that's when I knew she was getting better.

So after two days and two nights we are home.  She is still not eating as much as she normally does but she is so much better than she was.  Moochie is continuing to recover from croup as well - the doctor said he wouldn't be surprised if she had had RSV too.  

Here's a dark camera phone picture of my little 'Bean sleeping, the first night in the "hoskital" as she calls it :