New updates w/Pulmo & an ER visit

ANNA

Anna saw her pulmonologist last Wednesday, the 4th. The usual breathing assessment she does there showed that she actually had higher levels of inflammation of her airways than a few months ago when there. We recently decreased her Flovent inhaler dosage from twice a day to once a day. The pulmonologist was going to make that adjustment at this visit so she was fine with us having done that a week prior. She said the slight increase in inflammation might have been due to the decrease in Flovent, and she needs time to acclamate, or she might be coming down with something over the next week or so.

Anna will go back to see this doctor in late August. If at that time she's been healthy with no major flare ups, she will go off of the Flovent completely. If she has trouble from there, she can simply go back on it. Now, if she has been sick or had trouble with her asthma by the time we go back in August, she will have to continue taking the Flovent. It has been wonderful for her so far.

Her iron has come up a good deal. However, her iron saturation and iron stores are still not where they should be so she has to continue with the iron supplement. When we go back in August, if the levels are still low, she will have to take a larger dose of iron each day. If they are where they should be, she can stop the iron supplement and just take a children's mulitvitamin that has iron in it.

Today, Sunday the 8th, she has a bit of a mucousy cough so we're watching her closely.

MEREDITH

Meredith developed a fever of 102 Friday night. We noticed it around 7 :30 pm, and gave her Tylenol. We had to then give her Motrin at 10:30 pm because it had still not come down with just the Tylenol. I suspected she had an ear infection, yet again. She slept fine until about 4:15 am. She woke up from a cough that had just shown up. It was, of course, as is common with her, a croupy cough. I brought her into our bed so she wouldn't wake up Anna, and we went back to sleep for about 15 minutes. She then woke up again from the cough, and was gasping for air. She was really struggling to get air in, and her chest was caving in when inhaling. She was retracting (breathing abdominally) which is a sign of difficulty breathing. So, Ryan listened to her, and then she and I packed up to head to the ER. Ryan called them to give them the heads up that we were on our way, and filled them in on her symptoms.

We arrived there around 5:20 am, soon received a breathing treatment of cool mist (saline water), and waited to see the doctor. This was the ER I used to work in. The staff were wonderful. About 45 minutes later, the doctor came to assess Mere. She had some wheezing, but overall was doing better than when we had first arrived. She DID have an ear infection and croup, as I suspected. So, the doctor gave us prescriptions for, Orapred (oral prednisone), an antibiotic and told us to use our nebulizer for her as needed (Xopenex). They gave her a dose of the Orapred before we left. At this point, her fever was only 100, and she started to act as though she was on her way to feeling better.

We've been resting all weekend, and she's almost back to her normal spunky self. The Orapred is always great.

Mere was supposed to be rechecked by her ENT this coming Wednesday, the 11th, but the office cancelled our appointment a few days ago. I have rescheduled it for July 2nd. At that time, the ENT will be able to tell us if the fluid in her ears from this hopefully resolved infection that she has now is gone. If so, that's a great sign because her ears have had a lot of trouble with the fluid draining properly, it affects her hearing, and that's why she's been seeing the ENT. If they have not drained properly or the infection is still present, he will be discussing with us the next step to take with treating this recurring problem with her ears.

Thank you everyone for your get well wishes and prayers. The girls, overall, have been quite healthy over the past few months. It's been so encouraging to see the progress Anna's making since we removed the problem foods from her diet.