Sunday, April 3, 2011

ER visit and a development

let's start from the beginning. i took o to quickcare last sunday for wheezing and coughing (i know you're shocked.) it was all in her head and had not moved to her chest. i immediately started breathing treatments and have been doing them twice a day since sunday. on wednesday she was slightly better. on thursday she was worse and on friday slightly better again. saturday morning rett dropped her off here so we could begin our busy day and all through the morning i knew her breathing wasn't good. but i had to assume it was all still in her head b/c i'd started the treatments early enough so there was no way it could have moved down, right?!?! o played all day, had a good appetite, etc. no signs of any major distress.
at one point we entertained her with lipstick. she LOVED it! such a girl!
now to today... rett called about 9:30 this morning and said it was bad. he'd woken her up about 9 (hello!!) and she was VERY lethargic and not responding to anything. he'd done a treatment and could tell she was retracting mildly. i told him to meet me at jenny's. she agreed it was bad and that we needed to go to the ER. thankfully she agreed to come with us; it helps to have someone interpret medical jargon! (on the way to the ER i called my parents and told them to sit tight. at this point there was no need for them to do anything drastic like heading over to play the waiting game.) once in the ER they immediately did another treatment. did a flu and rsv swab and the dr came and ordered a chest xray. xray done and not 10 minutes later the xray guys are back for another one. they ask me if she had any birth defects and that they needed to do another xray. WHAT??? i'm not sure if that registered with anyone else in the room but i KNEW something was wrong with that statement. as soon as they finished i looked at jenny and rett and needed to know why they'd question a birth defect and need another picture. i'm crying and the poor nurse is trying to reassure me... even jenny said she would have approached that as, "i'm sorry but we messed up and just need another picture." i would have preferred that. now we get another breathing treatment as soon as this one is over the nurse brings in a popcicle. o kinda started to perk up at this point and inhaled the popcicle. then they come to draw blood and start fluids. they get the blood but her vein rolled and so we get them to hold off on the iv. the dr agrees that if she'll drink some then we won't have to do the iv. now the rsv and flu tests have come back negative. they attach a "wee bag" to her to try and collect urine. meanwhile we're pushing fluids. she gets orange juice, grape juice, my diet coke and jenny's water. by now it's also well past o's lunch time and she's pretty active. jenny went to the hospital subway and got us all lunch. while waiting on that o inhaled some sherbert and the nurse's cheese (you all know how she loves cheese.) then she ate her sandwich, apples, some of my chips and drank her hi-c. (jenny is such a good aunt-pure sugar.) oh, somewhere in all of this they did a strep test too. so now we're waiting on her to tee-tee in the bag and for all results. her blood shows a white count of 22 but EVERYTHING else is negative/clear. by this point o is a typical almost 2 year old and we're a little tired of waiting on her to tee-tee so i suggest the catheter. call me mean but it got the job done and was quick. urine tests were clear too. so the dr comes in (5-6 hours later) and tells us that all tests are clear and we're left with a cough, wheeze and high white count.
eating her lunch

she got a little mustard on her... :)
and then... he explains what they found on the chest xray. olivia has a condition known as dextrocardia. her heart is on the right side of her chest rather than where it's suppose to be on the left. he explained that there are varying degrees of this condition and since she's never had any problems he assumes that her's is a mild case. but we definately need to get to khanfar for a referral to a pediatric cardiologist. here's what i know about this... this occurs in about 1 in every 12,ooo people so it's not all that rare. however, the rarest form of this is that her heart would be absolutely perfect, just on the wrong side of her chest and all we'll have to do is a yearly cardiologist appt for the rest of her life. but that's the rarest form of this so i have to prepare myself for some complications. i KNOW she's fine. other than her rsv she's never had any problems. i KNOW she's fine. but we'll know more once we see the cardiologist (which hopefully will be soon b/c his NP is jenny's teacher so hopefully that connection will get us in pretty quickly.) with all that said...guess what a symptom of this condition is. REPEATED SINUS AND LUNG INFECTIONS! yep. this TOTALLY explains why she is always sick with breathing issues. we FINALLY have an answer! PRAISE GOD! He put us in that ER today so we'd find this. i know it. and he'll get us through this.

7 comments:

  1. OMG! Poor O! And poor you! I'll be thinking about ya'll, hoping you get good answers, and praying you get a good prognosis!

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  2. I know everything will be just fine with sweet Olivia. She's such a trooper! And thank goodness for finally getting an answer for all the sinus/resp infections she's had. Again, we'll keep you all in our prayers.

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  3. Wow! What a day you all have had! Happy to hear you know WHY she has been sick so much. Not happy she is sick at all though. :( I will be praying for good news from the pediatric cardiologist and peace for you!

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  4. I'm praying for you guys, too! I know that had to be so overwhelming. Wow! I am about to e-mail you!

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  5. Praying for y'all! Let me know if you need anything!

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  6. That is a lot to take in! Praying for you and O

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  7. Dr. King is fantastic! hopefully everything will be okay. will be praying for you.

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