Still fighting

I really wish all the members of my family would get healthy so I could blog about something else! I feel like I am not using the blog for the reasons I had in mind when I started it. I don't want to bore anyone or harp on about the same subject. I want to be light and funny and entertaining, but right now my real life just isn't giving me fodder for that type of post.
If you have read me recently you know that Pattie was in the hospital for 4 days over New Year's with pneumonia. She had a gloriously healthy 2 weeks afterwards. Last weekend we were finally able to take our Christmas trip to Houston and see family and share gifts and fun. Pattie has come out of the I-HATE-EVERYONE-WHO-ISN'T-MOMMY stage and was sweet and charming as we know her to be. The boys had a great time with their cousins and grandparents and, yes--their presents!!
On Sunday night around midnight (well, I guess that would be Monday morning then) my dad came to wake me up and say that Clay was calling for me. When I went to the room where he was sleeping he said his ear was hurting really bad. I gave him some Motrin and put some drops in his ear and silently patted myself on the back for remembering our little emergency kit that contains those items. On our way home Monday afternoon he was still not feeling well and every time I looked back I thought Pattie's cheeks looked a little too pink to be a flush from the warmth of the day.
Sure enough when we got home she was running a low fever. Cue the panicky music! I had already called from the road home to make Clay an appointment with our pediatrician on Tuesday morning, so as we got dressed to go I called and told them I needed Pattie looked at too. Sure enough, her ear was infected (again?/still?) and so was Clay's. They also repeated Pattie's chest x-ray since it had been 2 weeks since we left the hospital. She got a shot of Rocephin and a 10 day course of Augmentin and Clay is on Augmentin as well. Pattie's x-ray was clear (cue the angel choir) and things looked okay.
Wednesday night I thought I could hear crackles in her breathing and she started to cough. Not just cough here and there but violent coughing spells that had me holding a bucket in front of her because she was bound to throw up from coughing so hard. (FYI--the bucket REALLY pisses her off!) I slept very little that night and fitfully so. I was jumping out of bed every time I heard her cough so I finally slept on the futon couch in her room. I had a very bizarre dream about people coming to the house and taking the kids away. They told me I had Munchausen's By Proxy and I was putting something in their ears to make them sick. I kept saying how that was impossible because they were inner ear infections so nothing I put in their outer ears would cause them to be sick but they just said I wasn't a doctor and my kids were gone.
Thursday morning I e-mailed our doctor. (I love the ability to do this! Our hospital system sets up an account for each child and you can e-mail their doctor and they reply within 24 hours) She replied very quickly and told me to bring Pattie in at 2:50, so that's what I did.
The exam found the other ear now infected as well, and crackles on both sides of her lungs. Next, they checked her blood. I have a love/hate relationship with holding my own child for shots, blood draws, finger pricks, x-rays, etc... On the love side, I can provide some comfort, but I really hate it when I am holding Pattie for her finger prick and she is saying, "Momma HELP! Momma HELP!!" over and over again. After that was over they put her on the pulse ox monitor. This is the step that sent us to the hospital last time, but this time her O2 levels were great (*sigh of relief). They gave her a breathing treatment to see if it helped her crackles and she fell asleep after that. There didn't seem to be much change in her breath sounds from the treatment so her doctor ordered another shot of Rocephin and another chest x-ray. Nothing like waking your sleeping child up to give her a shot in each leg either, let me assure you!
On our way home the doctor called to say that the chest x-ray shows she has a Mycoplasma infection (aka walking pneumonia). The antibiotic that kills it is not the one she was on. It causes all her symptoms, even ear infections. So on the way home I stopped at the pharmacy and got her new meds to be given along with the ones she is already on.
In my last post, I listed all the meds Pattie has been on since December 16th. Here are the new additions:
January 19 she was given a shot of Rocephin
January 20-30 she is on a twice daily dose of Augmentin in it's strongest formulation
January 21 she was given a shot of Rocephin
January 21-25 she is on a once daily dose of Zithromax
Please no comments about the MASSIVE quantities of antibiotics and how damaging they can be to her little system. There is nothing you can say to me that I haven't considered and I hope your child is never sick enough for your doctor to prescribe all of this. I trust her doctor and very much admire her abilities and her training. She is not an over-prescriber by any means but my child is just about the sickest patient in their very large practice this month (I was told this not only by her but by the other partner we saw in the hospital).
I vacillate between praying fervently that she will get better and stay better and being so angry about the whole thing that I question my faith (no comments about this either please! The "everything happens for a reason" thing works a lot better once you finally know the reason and frankly no reason will be good enough when my child is suffering)
So, I'm sorry if you came by to read something light or amusing and you got this instead. I promise I will return to my good natured self once we can all breathe deeply without coughing spasms and crying jags (Pattie coughs, I cry). Until then, I hope you and yours are healthy and well.