Pneumonia

I am sitting here in Harrison room listening to the humidifier bubble between coughs and I am consumed with the smell of Vick's Vapor Rub.

We were doing so good! The last antibiotic was more than six months ago...and oh how good that feels to type that!

If you read my post from last night, you know I already had a gut feeling something was lurking around the corner. This was the third day I picked up Harrison and he was running a low grade fever. Today it was 100.5, not terribly elevated, but enough for daycare to call and inform me.

After calling Doug, I decided I would take him to urgent care, just to see what they had to say...because this cough has gone on long enough not to have him looked at.

The wait time when we got to urgent care was 45 minutes---thank goodness I stopped home and grabbed the I-Pad so he could play Elmo. Waiting wasn't too bad or seemed too long, but boy the nurse we had just didn't understand a 2 year old. I tried to convince her that she wasn't going to get him to stand on the scale. So after several attempts she weighed us both and subtracted his weight. Next she was insistent we get his height and him stand up to the wall. "OK lady, I have a sick child, the last thing he is going to do is go stand up against that wall and get measured." I said he had his height taken about 2 months ago and he was 31 1/2 inches long---I've doubt he was grown that much taller since then. FINALLY she gave up! Next we need to get his 02 level---this was even better. She attempted to get a reading on his finger, which I said he wouldn't let her do. We have been to the doctor too many times I know this child inside and out. I asked if we could use his foot instead. Her response was, "well, he will just kick it off, here let me ask someone else that might have an idea how to get a reading." A much friendlier nurse came in and said, "why don't you try his foot?" See lady...maybe I do know something! The friendly nurse took his temp. and then the not so friendly nurse tells me she is doubtful it's pneumonia, it's probably and ear infection. I said, " I am doubtful it's that, he has tubes and I would have seen drainage. She went on to say just because he has tubes he can still get infections and I wouldn't know. This is where I looked at her and said, "you know what I don't think this is an ear infection...he has had 14 of them before I think I know what I am talking about (8 after tube placement)." I also wasn't a fan of the way she looked at me, like I couldn't control my child. I will admit, Harrison doctor's horribly---he hates it and I don't blame him---52 days in the NICU and I don't know how many follow up visits, hell I would want out too. In fact on our way in tonight he looks and me and says, "no, no."

We get to see a doctor, not Harrison regular doctor (who I love), but this doctor did a really good job and most of all he listened to me. When you have a premature baby, just because he is two now doesn't mean he is out the woods. After listening to Harrison lungs he said that there is definitely some pneumonia stuff going on..."I would like to see a x-ray of his chest, but I would have to send you over to the hospital to do that and I don't want to make you do that or put him through that," he said. The doctor decided to treat this as pneumonia without the x-ray to confirm. I am so happy we didn't need to put him through another chest x-ray. The last one was horrible, it took two assistants and Doug and I to hold him down. This was such a relief I probably could have kissed the doctor. The doctor also suggested another coarse of steroids to help his lungs a little more.

So why this bottle of chocolate syrup? It was the doctor's recommendation to try to get Harrison to take the steroids---the taste isn't all the bad of the steroids, but the after taste is horrible. The chocolate is supposed to coat his mouth so the taste isn't as bitter and then he is supposed to take the medicine. It didn't go over well tonight... The antibiotics we put in yogurt and that seemed to do the trick.

Harrison is still running a fever tonight, so he will stay home with daddy tomorrow and rest up....he needs to be good as new by Friday when we leave for our trip to Wisconsin Dells.

Despite all of this---Harrison remains in a pretty good mood which is welcomed with opened arms. I called my mom tonight and she said, "It's probably because he is just used to being sick." That is probably true. He is truly our little trooper!

I have to share some sweetness from our bed time story just before I started this blog entry. We read "Green Eggs & Ham." On the last page of the book when same tries the eggs and ham, Harrison pretends to scoop the eggs off the page and pretended to eat them. Then he thought mommy needed some too---I burst out laughing. Next we read the book, "Bear Wants More" (guess it was a night all about food) and Harrison tried to feed Bear eggs and ham from the Dr. Seuss book. I've done my best to describe the moment, but certainly it can't do justice to actually being here to see this.

To end this post with smile, Harrison also brought home some new art work and insisted that it be hung on the refigerator.