Our first trip to the Children's Hospital

I have been sleeping in the basement for most, if not all, of the evenings with Miss Cate due to her unpredictable schedule and being able to turn on lights and not disrupting anyone.  It's just easier and I really don't mind at all. I am so tired by evening I could sleep just about anywhere.  

Thursday night Miss M was coughing quite a bit in her sleep (even Poppy noticed and I thought he slept through everything). She eventually got up and slept in our bed with Andrew.  He noticed she was coughing a lot and breathing kind of funny. I didn't think much of it. I assumed she had a cold so I gave her some cough medicine.  I let her watch a lot of shows during the day b/c she seemed tired (presumably from being up all night).  She didn't eat much of anything.  Eventually (after Poppy and Grandma left for the city and before Andrew got home) she laid on the couch and fell asleep. I noticed she was breathing really loud but for some reason didn't think much of it.  She woke up at 6:30pm and didn't eat dinner and demanded to go to her bed to go to sleep. Andrew came home at 8pm and went to check on her in her room and she was just laying there awake. We let her come downstairs and watch tv and more shows with us.  She ate a few bites of an ice cream sandwich and during the silence of her eating, watching tv, and not having to focus on any other children I noticed her breathing was severely labored. You could see it in her neck, her chest and hear it in every breath she took. 

I was going to put her to bed around 10pm and I decided to call the insurance hotline to talk to a nurse. It was a waste of my time as she directed me to call the emergency number to speak to her pediatrician.  The pediatrician recommended almost immediately to take her downtown to the children's hospital due to there being no pediatric specialists by us.  

So at 11pm we loaded up the minivan with her blankets and teddy bear and ventured to the city. Poppy was pulling into the driveway as we were about to pull out so he jumped in and went into the city with us.  

She was not impressed. She didn't want to go. She was convinced she wasn't sick. She told me all day she was fine rather she just had a cough. She kept saying "you know I just want to go home mom" or "I don't think this is a good idea mom". They put her in a room in the ER and started breathing treatments. They tried to make it out like it was going to be exciting as the mask looked like a dragon. She didn't want anything to do with being a dragon. We had to do two intense breathing treatments and then they gave her a popsicle. I thought we were done. I told her we were done. Mistake made. We weren't even close to being done.  We had to start a one hour treatment and then another one hour treatment. I think she eventually stopped fighting the mask and fell asleep around 5am. I don't even remember. I passed out holding her mask on her face.

They ended up admitting her. They administered some kind of inhaler treatments every few hours.  They would come in while she was sleeping and put the mask on her face and freak her out. It was awful.

Eventually she woke up.  Grandma and Aunt Nessie came to visit and brought all the necessities of life: phone charger, OJ, McDonalds.  They were welcome faces after seeing a zillion different doctors and nurses all night long.

She just wanted to lay in the small bed/chair b/c she's small. Therefore I got her big bed. It was a pretty good deal for me. We watched tv all day long. We even managed to watch Frozen three times before we left.

They released us at 6pm the day after we arrived.  It was a long night and a long day. I am so glad we didn't take her to the local hospital.  The children's hospital was amazing.