a yucky week

Annabelle was starting to get sick this week, coughing, breathing hard, sore throat. She got sent home from school with a 104 degree fever that developed very suddenly and when my Mom picked her up, she started throwing up.

We took her to see the doctor, who ran tests and x-rays and learned that she had bronchitis. Apparently once you get bronchitis, it stays with you, because she first got bronchitis about 3 or 4 months ago.

He sent us to the hospital overnight, to have an IV inserted and a couple of rounds of steroids, antibiotics and something to get her potassium levels up.

Annabelle was such a trooper. She LOVED the hospital. People kept bringing her popsicles and lollipops, stuffed animals and sticky toys. She recited all of her jokes and sang songs for all of the nurses. She even booked her reservations for next year, saying, "Hey, when i come back next year, can i have some more candy?" The nurse just laughed and said, "hopefully you won't have to come back next year!"


The IV was horrible, an intense, anguish filled 10 minutes of Annabelle crying and saying, "That's all that I want! I don't want anymore!" It was rough.

After the IV everything was perfect. She took a little nap while visitors came in and out, bearing gifts. When she woke up she said, "Mom, this is like a birthday party!"

She had to do breathing treatments to try to stop the wheezing, forced breathing she was doing. She had this nebulizer in her mouth that smoked out of the end of it. The nurse told her that she would put it in her mouth and "smoke it". Annabelle said, "But I don't like smoking." We convinced her that it was "good smoke" for little kids. Now it's her favorite thing to do. She would wake up happily at 4 am to "smoke".

She threw quite a tantrum when we told her it was time to go home. She said it was so much fun at the hospital and she loved all the doctors and her "cute little bed" and her popsicles.
Dr. Fink gave her several handfuls of lollipops and sticky toys and she was good to go.

We're home and well now. She is taking lots of medicine, and is not allowed to go outside until her appointment Monday. But she is really looking foward to the appointment at Dr. Fink's office. He's the candy man. When Annabelle was little, she had to visit Dr. Fink once and he gave her a handful of candy (even though she had never had candy before) From that day on, everytime my Mom mentioned Dr. Fink, Annabelle would light up and say, "Ummmm, Dr. Fink!" He definitely lived up to his nickname this time. He sent us home with 12 Blow Pops.

posted by mindi11 @ 7/20/2006 09:30:00 AM