RSV

This last week has been a little stressful! A little over a week ago Dawson started getting sick again...his second cold in a month! We were worried that Ashlynn was going to catch it, so once again we tried to keep Dawson away from her and I sprayed Lysol downstairs each night after everyone went to bed. Unfortunately Ashlynn still caught it. As soon as she started coughing we made her an appointment with her pediatrician. It took a day or so before they could get us in, they saw us Wednesday and decided to test her for RSV. They said they were going to test her for pertussis (whooping cough) but for some reason did not. The RSV came back positive so they admitted her into the hospital for observation. She was hooked up to all the monitors for about 12 hours and they said her lungs sounded fine. So they let us go home.



We had a follow up appointment on Friday and we were so happy that we did because she was coughing so hard that she couldn't keep any milk down! She would eat, have a coughing fit, then spit up everything she just ate. Her lungs still sounded fine at her followup but the pediatrician was concerned about her cough and how much she was spitting up so she was admitted into the hospital again. I asked the peditrician if they would test for pertussis like they said they were going to and she told me to tell the doctors upstairs once we were admitted and they would take care of it. So I did and I felt like they just blew me off. I seriously asked 3 or 4 different doctors and nurses before they finally swabbed her for it on Saturday night.



On Sunday she started to get a fever. This could be because if the RSV but because she was just now getting a fever instead of when she first started getting sick they were concerned. Her oxygen levels started dropping a little bit around this time so they had to put her on a little bit of oxygen. They took some blood and did a spinal tap so they could check for infection. They also started her on antibiotics just in case there was an infection. And guess what?! They were all of a sudden interested in ruling out pertussis. They hadn't even sent it out to be tested yet even though they swabbed her for it the day before! They have to send it to another hospital to get the results so they did that on Sunday night. I'm annoyed that it took so long when I had been bugging them about it for almost 3 days, it could have been ruled out (or confirmed) a couple of days ago!

As of Monday evening she is doing a lot better. Her cough is not at all as bad as it was and she is able to keep down most of her feeds. They have weaned her completely off the oxygen so that's good! Her appetite isn't what it used to be but we're hoping she'll get back up to regular feeds soon. Right now she is eating 1.5-2 ounces every 3 hours and she used to eat 4 ounces every 3 hours. So far all of the cultures are coming back negative and we haven't heard anything about the whooping cough test yet.

We are hoping that she is well enough to come home within the next few days. Either Dave or myself has been with her at the hospital the entire time, and Dawson has been there a lot too since Dave had duty this weekend and has to work during the week. Dawson gets super bored and I feel bad for him but there is no way I could leave Ashlynn there by herself.

Oh, and on Wednesday she weighed 8 pounds 10 ounces!! I thought that was way cool because she has gained so much since she was born (over 3 pounds now!) and she was the exact same weight that Dawson was when he was born! She was just under 21 inches, too, and Dawson was 20 1/2 inches when he was born... All day I kept looking at her and thinking about how big she looked compared to when she was born. I also kept thinking that I couldn't believe I birthed a baby that big! *lol*

Her room is painted cute, with some fairies on the wall and this cute frog!