Oink oink
It occurs to me that someone reading this blog who's not familiar with the events of the past week might be saying "Hospital? What hospital?" after reading the last entry.
Last weekend Samantha was feeling sort of poorly, tired and under the weather. She was feeling a lot like Joshua and I felt a week or two earlier, and we assumed that we all have either a cold or a mild case of the flu. But Samantha's cough kept getting worse and she started complaining that it was hard to breathe. Sunday afternoon she had no fever, by Sunday night her temperature was 103.
We called the pediatrician on call Sunday night and were advised to give her Tylenol and Motrin to control her fever overnight and if her breathing wasn't better in the morning to bring her in. Her temperature didn't go down much, and breathing wasn't better. It was worse -- fast, shallow, and labored.
We took her to the doctor's office on Sunday morning. Her doctor spent about 5 minutes looking at her and listening to her lungs, checked her O2 sats and found them in the low 90's, then asked if we wanted to drive her to the hospital or take an ambulance. We drove, although if I'd known how bad traffic was going to be and how much Samantha's condition was going to change just on the drive over we'd have taken the ambulance. By the time we got to the hospital she was slumped over in the back seat, burning up with fever and mostly unresponsive (though some of that was simple exhaustion).
Samantha was admitted to the hospital on Monday night and stayed until Wednesday. Lab tests confirmed that she had the H1N1 flu complicated by double pneumonia. So it was three days of I/V Tamiflu and antibiotics, steroids to reduce the inflammation in her lungs, oxygen, etc.
Thankfully, she recovered quickly and completely and is home now and fine, though she'll be on antibiotics for another week and may need to use an inhaler every once in a while for a few days.
The doctors and nurses at Childrens Hospital in Boston are the best.
The morals of the story are vaccinate your kids against H1N1 as soon as you have the opportunity, and if you or your child does get the flu, watch carefully for signs of respiratory distress and take them seriously.
Last weekend Samantha was feeling sort of poorly, tired and under the weather. She was feeling a lot like Joshua and I felt a week or two earlier, and we assumed that we all have either a cold or a mild case of the flu. But Samantha's cough kept getting worse and she started complaining that it was hard to breathe. Sunday afternoon she had no fever, by Sunday night her temperature was 103.
We called the pediatrician on call Sunday night and were advised to give her Tylenol and Motrin to control her fever overnight and if her breathing wasn't better in the morning to bring her in. Her temperature didn't go down much, and breathing wasn't better. It was worse -- fast, shallow, and labored.
We took her to the doctor's office on Sunday morning. Her doctor spent about 5 minutes looking at her and listening to her lungs, checked her O2 sats and found them in the low 90's, then asked if we wanted to drive her to the hospital or take an ambulance. We drove, although if I'd known how bad traffic was going to be and how much Samantha's condition was going to change just on the drive over we'd have taken the ambulance. By the time we got to the hospital she was slumped over in the back seat, burning up with fever and mostly unresponsive (though some of that was simple exhaustion).
Samantha was admitted to the hospital on Monday night and stayed until Wednesday. Lab tests confirmed that she had the H1N1 flu complicated by double pneumonia. So it was three days of I/V Tamiflu and antibiotics, steroids to reduce the inflammation in her lungs, oxygen, etc.
Thankfully, she recovered quickly and completely and is home now and fine, though she'll be on antibiotics for another week and may need to use an inhaler every once in a while for a few days.
The doctors and nurses at Childrens Hospital in Boston are the best.
The morals of the story are vaccinate your kids against H1N1 as soon as you have the opportunity, and if you or your child does get the flu, watch carefully for signs of respiratory distress and take them seriously.
posted by Matt Landau | 7:16 PM
3 Comments:
We are all thankful that Samantha came through her illness so well. Such good advice you gave. We just never think such a terrible illness will actually occur in our own family.
Sam is something, so resilient and strong. It will serve her well in her lifetime.
Judy/Mom
This comment has been removed by the author.
How scary! Glad to hear Samantha is fine now. Juliette has part 1 of the H1N1 vaccine and will get part 2 in a couple of weeks.
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