Little Sickie

The past couple of days have been pretty eventful for our little family. Macy started showing signs of a cold this past Friday; she had a fever, cough and stuffy nose, typical for this time of year. She continued to have those symptoms over the weekend and by Monday still wasn't showing any signs of improvement, so we decided to take her to the doctor to see if there was anything we could do.

After two hours of waiting, chest x-rays and examining, the doctor told us Macy had an ear infection...and that we needed to take her to Primary Children's Hospital because she wasn't getting enough oxygen into her system. Apparently a healthy oxygen saturation level is right around 100; Macy's was in the low 80's.

So we drove up to Primary's ER and spent several hours there. They started Macy on oxygen, gave her several breathing treatments, but still didn't see the improvement that they were looking for. They decided to keep us overnight and got us into a room around 3am.


The next day Macy went through some more breathing treatments and a lot of suctioning was done (through her nose) to try to get some of the junk out of her and get her breathing better. Her oxygen levels started climbing, but still weren't high enough or stable for long enough, so they decided to keep her another night. They also gave her an IV to help her get some fluids because she wasn't drinking or eating anything.


Wednesday morning our wonderful nurse (one among many really great ones) started slowly weaning Macy off of her oxygen. By about noon, she told us Macy could be taken off oxygen and could take the nasal cannula out. Around 5pm, our doctor came by and gave us the okay to take Macy home. Macy brightened up almost as soon as we walked out of the hospital, and by the time we got home was running around the house, almost completely back to normal. We still have to really watch her breathing and fluid intake for the next couple of days, but the doctors said she should be back to full health by next week.

This is something I never thought I would have to deal with as a parent. Both Brett and I come from healthy families, and although Macy has had her share of colds, she has never had any health issues. It is the hardest thing in the world to see your little baby be so scared and not be able to do much to comfort them. I know our experience isn't half as bad as what many parents have to go through with their children, but it is still something I would never wish on anyone.

Despite how hard and scary the past few days have been, this experience has really helped me to realize how much we have to be grateful for. What a blessing it was to be so close to a hospital with excellent nurses and doctors who were so kind and helpful. I think of how blessed we are to have good insurance through Brett's work and how understanding his boss was when Brett called to ask for two days off. We had several family members and friends come visit or call and are so grateful for all of their support as well. Above all, I feel so blessed to have a little girl that got to come home and will be back to full health in a couple of days, because many parents (even just at the hospital we were at) don't get that.