The Hospital and the Beach

Three weeks after Madelines's first breathing incident in New York, she woke up from her nap breathing really fast. I rushed her to her pediatrician. He sent me home with her after two nebulizer treatments with advice to head to the emergency room if she got worse. She did, so I did. I spent several hours in a room in the ER holding her while giving her treatment after treatment. She hated it and was so miserable. We couldn't move around much because she was attached to the oxygen monitoring machine, and she never fell asleep. We couldn't get her breathing to slow down or her oxygen saturation levels up, so they finally decided to admit her. I really didn't like the ER doc and the whole experience was frustrating. We didn't get up to a room until 5:30 am, and both fell asleep the minute the nurse left.

The next morning she was breathing fine again, so they released her. This time, the official diagnosis was bronchiolitis, but Jason and I had a feeling there was something more going on. We didn't actually get discharged until 5:30 pm. Luckily Jason had the day off (it was a Friday) so he had the boys, and my mom showed up mid-morning to play with Madeline so I could go home and shower and get something to eat. While she was there, my mom taught Madeline to say "uh oh"...her first words.

Jason was scheduled to speak at a conference in Wilmington early Saturday morning. The conference provided a hotel room at the oceanfront hotel and we had all planned to go down together. Jason and Ethan left an hour after Maddie and I got home from the hospital. I opted to stay home with the younger two so Madeline and I could get a good nights' sleep. We went down and joined them the next day. Ethan sat with one of Jason's co-workers (Beth) and was extremely good while Jason spoke. We were able to get in a little time at the beach, though Maddie was still a little sick and traumatized and needed some extra cuddling.