Sick Sunday

Well we made an all time record for health this winter with a nice 2 almost 3 week span of a healthy E.  Alas all good things must come to an end.  Two weeks ago I went to pick E up at daycare and a pack n play was drying out in the yard.  Not a good sign.  Well it turns out two kids had gone home because of vomiting.  Another two cam down with it the  next day.  So we were on puke watch last weekend.  I was really looking forward to puke fest for my vacation.  Thankfully we had no vomit but her gastro system didn't get out unscathed and E started having problems on the other end on Sunday...at my mil's.  She seemed fine on Monday in the am but the afternoon it was back.  I stepped up her probiotics and it was gone by Tuesday!  We had a nice week together but on Thursday afternoon her nose started to run.  So I knew we were back on the sick wagon.  Friday she was ok and Shazam and I went out to dinner for her birthday.  Yum.  Friday night E was pretty restless and woke many times which is unusual for her.  Saturday was busy with tutoring and errands in the morning.  By the time I got her home in the afternoon I could tell she was tired and didn't feel great.  I tried to put her down but she would sleep for 5 min and then wake up crying.  Finally after 45 min I gave up and go her up.  She was labored in her breathing so I kept a close eye on her.  When Shazam came home from lunch with a friend she was retracting a little and grunting when she breathed.  I was really hoping to avoid the ER on Shazam's birthday so we gave her a bath and lubed her up with some vics but by 10 with no sleep to be had by little E and very pronounced wheezing that we would be ER bound.  So into the night we went.  She was very unhappy when we got there and threw a hissy in triage.  Her O2 was satting at 90 and she had nasal flaring and definite retractions.  When you show up with a preemie who is having trouble breathing you get pretty fast service and we were in a room less than a half hour of checking in.  We started blow by oxygen while we waited for the doctor.  The nurse observed her breathing and let me know that a respiratory therapist would be over to give a breathing treatment.  The doctor came in and checked on her confirmed that she needed a breathing treatment.  She got one breathing treatment and was still wheezing and her oxygen sats were 92-94 so off to a chest x-ray we went.  I think triage and the x-ray were the worst part of the visit.  We had to pin her down for two xrays and poor little E was pretty upset by the end of it.  On top of feeling like crap, she had not napped all day and by that time it was about 12 am.  The x-ray was clear so she had another treatment and a dose of oral pretnisone which did the trick and we got to go home.  We are now the proud owners of our own nebulizer.  We have been doing treatments every 4-6 hours and other than some wheezing this morning around 10 she has been breathing really well.  Still a little short of breath but not in respiratory distress (no grunting, retractions or fast breathing).  She also is on an oral dose of pretnisone once a day.  We will check in with her doctor tomorrow to see when she wants to see us in the office and will continue the nebulizer every 6 hours for the next 4 days and the pretnisone for another 2 hopefully by then she will be all set and we can pack the nebulizer away for a long time.  Although it is a pain to do the treatments E has been a trooper and while some kids hate the treatments E actually seems to enjoy them.  At one point tonight she had the whole tube in her mouth.  I am not going to let her know that she is supposed to hate them.  Here she is huffing on her elephant trunk as I call it.