Well, here we are 20 days after Audrey started her first fever of this string of illnesses and the cough continues. It's sleepless nights of coughing fits and we are all zombies...... and still no answers. As usual, the pediatrician starts us off on the nebulizer treatments and as usual, no relief. We upped the dosage, no relief, and then began the oral steroids. It turned out that the allergist circled the wrong dosage on his hand written treatment plan for Audrey's "Asthma Attack Plan" and so for 4 days I was giving her WAY too much. I was balling on the phone to the pharmacist when I finally figured it out. She's almost finished with her taper, but the poor girl has been through the ringer. Normal side effects of steroids have her puffed up and excessively hungry. I'm hoping we'll be returning back to normal soon. I have since battled with Nurse Specialists and PAs at the Children's Clinic (of course can't speak to an actual MD), but have yet to receive an apology or even have anyone recognize that this is big deal. They didn't even return my calls when the overdose was recognized. I was irate and devastated last week. Despite the heavy doses, the cough still remained, so my pediatrician sent us for sinus xrays and chest xrays. Audrey was a champ. She didn't cry and sat completely still for every view that they had to take. Xrays came back consistent with some sort of bronchitis and AGAIN she is on antibiotics. Because every tiny sickness that she gets always results in this respiratory infection requiring antibiotics, the next step is a lengthy blood work-up to see how her immune system is doing. Very frightening. Right now she's taking OraPred, Xopenex, Singulair, zithromax, and a cough suppressant and antihistamine. Too much for that little angel.
We were on our way to music class last Friday morning and Audrey was so excited. We had dropped Ella off and were belting out the songs on the way. The pediatrician called and asked how close we were to the office, she had an opening........so, i turned around the car to head to her office. If you could have seen the tears and sadness on Audrey's face when I had to tell her that we has to miss music to go to yet another dr. appt, it would have broken your heart. It did mine.
Tomorrow is our follow-up with the allergist. I'm hoping to get somewhere with this one.
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2 comments:
Poor little Audrey! We had similar issues with Caroline, but I don't think quite as bad at all. She uses an inhaler twice a day and takes zyrtec once a day. She seems to be getting better with age, but it used to be horrible. When the rest of the family would get common colds, she would get bronchitis or pneumonia! Good luck and keep giving thos docs heck for the med error!
Oh Jen! That does break my heart just reading it!! I feel so sad for you because I know how I feel so helpless when Ben gets sick over and over and over again and we don't even have the respiratory distress to deal with!! Hang in there and keep probing for answers!!
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