M started coughing and running nose on Tuesday, March 23rd, just like her sister E. On Friday, 26th, she started having a high fever, around 103.5. It lasted till Monday, 29th when K finally took her to doctor office. She was listless, breathing rapidly. Her doctor suspected pneumonia and admitted her to hospital right away.
March 29th, Monday
Chest X ray indicated no pneumonia. Nose swap came back with RSV (Respiratory Syncytial Virus). Her respiratory rate was so high, above 100 most of the time. They hooked her up with oxygen. I fed her half can of meat and carrot in the evening.
March 30th, Tuesday
Her fever persists, as well as the high respiratory rate. Did a second chest X ray. It still showed no signs of pneumonia. She was getting nose suctions and respiratory treatments every 4 hours. But the respiratory rate was still very high. The attending doctor decided to transfer her to the main campus of the hospital at downtown to be near to NICU.
March 31st, Wednesday
No sign of improvement. She had some pediaSure and was later put on Nasogastric Tube (ng). They did urine and blood culture. Nothing came back abnormal. The attending doctor sought out the opinion of the infectious disease team. They suggested a test for mycoplasma pneumonia. I gave her a sponge bath in the evening, her chubby cheek was no more, just two big eyes left. Not long after the bath, she felt so warm. It turned out her temperature spiked to 104.6.
April 1st, Thursday
No sign of improvement. Doctor was also puzzled by the prolonged fever. Two more tests were done for a different kind of respiratory viral and pertussis whooping cough. They started treat her with antibiotic zithromax.
April 2nd, Friday
At last something happened. Her last fever was 1 am. I started to notice she had more energy and even sat up a little bit. But she was still coughing a lot.
April 3rd, Saturday
No fever for 24 hours! But still coughing. She had the 3rd chest X ray. It came back normal. Other kids came to see her for the first time after we transferred here. I even took 2 hours off to eat dinner with the rest of the gang. Her mycoplasma test came back normal, and WBC was back to normal level. Doctor says if her respiratory rate can keep in 40 to 50, then we might start thinking going home. They took off her IV in the evening.
April 4th, Sunday
Her respiratory rate was at 50-60 level over the night. Spoon fed her some milk in the morning and she was doing well. They took off her monitors probes, ng and oxygen. If nothing goes wrong, we should go home tomorrow. :)
Looking back, the kids have been sick a lot since late November. It was a long and cold winter, we had the most snow I have ever seen since I lived here for 10 years. M was doing pretty well until this time. We didn’t expect her illness became so serious. Wish we could have had more effective home quarantine procedures when the older ones got sick.
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