Meadows Family: An Unpleasant Happening!

So, Wednesday I get a call from Gran about Berk's cough sounding worse. (She has had a cough her recently but it is Winter and we live in West Texas where one day it is 70 and the next it is ice, so we had contributed it to the weather!) Well on Wednesday she was wheezing and her cough sounded more "chesty" so I took off from work at 2:45 to get her to the doctor by 4:30. Well my hope was that it was something like bronchitis or a bad cold but our worse fears were confirmed when she tested postitive for RSV. For those of you who do not know what RSV is, here is the CDC's definition:

*Respiratory syncytial (sin-SISH-uhl) virus, or RSV, is a respiratory virus that infects the lungs and breathing passages. Most otherwise healthy people recover from RSV infection in 1 to 2 weeks. However, infection can be severe in some people, such as certain infants, young children, and older adults. In fact, RSV is the most common cause of bronchiolitis (inflammation of the small airways in the lung) and pneumonia in children under 1 year of age in the United States. In addition, RSV is more often being recognized as an important cause of respiratory illness in older adults.

Now, thankfully I think we caught it fast so we don't have to worry about pneumonia at this point but she is doing breathing treatments with Xopenex every 4 hours and Budesonide twice daily and Amoxicillin for an ear infection for ten days!! So that is how my Wednesday went: got to Lubbock about 4, out of the doctor's by 5, to Walgreens to check on the perscription, to Care Source for the nebulizer, call the guy because they were closed, to Sam's for diapers and formula and then back to Walgreens for meds and then to another Walgreens for the medicine that the first one didn't have! All in all we got home about 9 Wednesday night and then I stayed home with her on Thursday. The child must have a high pain tolerance because she NEVER screamed like babies typically do when they have ear infections and she has acted like her normal self. The thing that threw us for a loop was that she NEVER ran fever, her snot never changed and she never stopped eating like they say most do! So I don't know what we are going to do if she gets sick and continues to show no typical signs! But we go back on Thursday for a check up and hopefully she will be all clear or at least the doctor will be pleased with the progress! And kudos to whoever invented the pacifier for babies to suck on for the nebulizer; it has made our life pretty easy! Well I am posting pictures of her nebulizer and her first go at it on Wednesday night! Keep us in your prayers that her little body heals and this doesn't turn into anything worse! Have a great weekend!

Meadows