On Christmas Day, Viv woke up with the sniffles and a cough. Great! She's sick again! We watched her over the next three days. No fever. No vomiting. No diarrhea. Then, what we thought was just a mild cold, took a turn for the worse. On the 28th, Viv woke up at 9:30 in the morning (which is WAY later than her usual 6am!) and was burning up and very lethargic. She just sat on my lap, repeatedly closing her eyes, and crying. That was when we decided to take her to the doctor. She was asleep by 10:30 and didn't wake up until we took her out of her car seat to be weighed by the nurse. The doctor immediately sent us to the emergency room at Children's Hospital in D.C.
When we got there, we were taken in right away. Viv was very sick. She was having trouble breathing and had a very high fever. They ran some tests and discovered that she had R.S.V. (Respiratory Syncytial Virus), which in adults is similar to the common cold. However, in infants, it can be much more serious.
After a nebulizer breathing treatment, a chest x-ray (she's pictured above looking so tired in her tiny little hospital gown), some Motrin, Pedialite, and an 7 hour observation in the ER (at which point she seemed to be feeling better-- see picture below), we were sent home with an inhaler and told to watch her closely over the next few days.
Well, it was easy to watch her because she slept most of the time. She was exhausted. And she couldn't breathe very well. She woke up every few hours to drink some Pedialite or milk, get a couple of puffs from the inhaler, and have her nose suctioned clean. It was a rough few days.
A couple of days after our ER visit, Viv's Aunt Steph came over for a visit and Viv was feeling a little better.
Since we've been back in Indiana, Viv seems to have almost fully recovered. She's back to her normal sleeping schedule, can breathe (that's the big one), and doesn't cough very often.
We couldn't make it all the way this time around so we stayed overnight at a Red Roof Inn to pacify G & V and get some much needed rest.
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