ER Visit

Monday night when Cody picked Ella up from daycare she had thrown up on her clothes. Later that night she began breathing irregularly, gasping & developed a fever of 101 degrees. After talking to grandma (& nurse) Teri about her symptoms we were concerned that she had aspirated. (inhaled her throw up) Cody called her doctor’s office and talked to the triage nurse who then called the on call doctor. They wanted us to go to emergency room right away. Any fluid in her premature lungs would be really dangerous. I of course went into “freak out Mom mode”! I am really bad when anything happens with her, I always think worse-case scenario. (thank goodness Cody stays calm) We loaded her up and headed to the Salem hospital. Upon arrival they checked her vitals and sent us to wait in the waiting room. Grandpa & Grandma Sitton came down from Portland to be there with us. After 3 hours in the waiting room (with mostly uninsured non-emergency patients – don’t get me started on that topic!!) we finally got called back into a room. But that only meant more waiting… a nurse checked her out and took her vitals again & said her lungs sounded good… her temperature was down at that point. After the doctor saw us at 1AM we did the chest x-ray which the staff called “baby torture”… boy was that an understatement!! :( Ella had to sit tightly in a clear contraption with her arms above her head (I got to hold her fingers) while they did the x-ray. She screamed like we were killing her. It was the longest couple minutes for all of us! Then we went back to our room and waited. The results came back good on her x-ray. It’s more of an upper respiratory issue. If there would have been more fluid they would have had to get it out. Thank goodness that was not the case, it could have been so much worse! So no treatment was needed and we were okayed to go home. We were told to watch her closely for the next 24 hours to insure the fever didn’t return and her trouble breathing didn’t increase and they hoped she would cough out anything else. I am happy to say she is doing a lot better. She took lots of naps and got a full day of snuggling with Mommy & Daddy Tuesday :) She is not making the gasping/wheezing noise anymore. A BIG thank you to my parents for keeping a 8 month happy for 3 hours in a waiting room with nothing to do!! I am sure this won’t be the last heart attack she gives us!