In the Hospital with Mimi

It is amazing how quickly plans can change. This week I was supposed to get back to my work-from-home job, do a bunch of laundry and other chores and maybe go to the book party I posted about yesterday. Nothing exciting, just normal work/family stuff. But now Mimi is in the hospital with RSV and everything else got chucked out the window.



Last weekend Mimi caught E's perpetual cold (thank-you, preschool!) and on Sunday she started coughing a bit. On Monday I could sometimes hear a tiny little wheeze in her breathing so I took her to the doctor. He said that her lungs sounded fine and that the congestion was just in her head and to watch her closely to see if her breathing because more labored. By Tuesday night it seemed worse and so yesterday after I dropped of E at preschool I took Mimi to the doctor.

I know I can be kind of paranoid when it comes to the kids and so I half-expected the doctor to tell me that she was fine and just remind me to use a humidifier in her room, etc... Instead he got kind of serious rather quickly and told me right off the bat that she was right on the border of having to go to the hospital. They gave her a breathing treatment which helped raise her oxygen levels a little but not enough and so they called the hospital to let them know she would be coming.

I ran home and grabbed a few things and took Mimi right to the hospital; N picked up E from preschool and then they met us there. E watched cartoons on the tv while the nurses explained the plan to N and me: they need to suction the gunk out of her nose and sinus cavity by running a thin tube up her nose every 2 or 3 hours, give her nebulizer treatments as needed (so far she's only had one) and watch her oxygen levels closely. Last night her oxygen levels kept dropping so they put her on a oxygen tube.

Overall, Mimi's doing as well as can be expected. She understandably HATES having her nose suctioned and screams bloody murder when they do it but other than that she is still being her easygoing self.

Right now I'm pretty zonked from being up with her for most of the night but in general I'm doing okay too. I am (of course) very concerned about Mimi's health and I hate seeing her hooked up to all these tubes and wires but so far I've been able to keep the panic at bay. The nurses and doctors have been great and seem to know what they're doing and it's reassuring to be able to look at the monitors and see that her oxygen and heart rate are doing fine.

The doctor said that we'll most likely be here until they only need to suction Mimi once a day. We're still at needing it every few hours but hopefully she'll improve soon.

Labels: ,