I would love to understand certain parts of the human brain. How do we form memories? How do they stick? Why do some stick more than others?
I think every mother with grown children probably has numerous memories that have been burned into her brain… you know, the kind of memories that form quickly and are crisp and clear years later. Everyone has that sort of thing happen at momentous times: September 11th, JFK’s assassination, the bombing of Pearl Harbor… people can remember exact details of where they were and what they were doing when the news reached them. It’s just that, for mothers, there seem to be more “momentous occasions” than there are for other people. I experienced one of my first this past Tuesday morning.
Let me back up first and give a little background. Last Monday, the day we put Sheba down, Alexis started sneezing and I figured she had probably picked up another cold somewhere. The next day her nose was like a faucet and I concluded that I had guessed correctly. She continued with cold symptoms for several days, and Branwen started with a runny nose on Friday. Par for the course; we’d been through this before. The first jarring note in this rather tiresome routine was Friday night after Alexis had gone to bed. I went to check on her and noted that she felt rather warm. Joel said he had thought so, too. We didn’t check her temperature then because we didn’t want to wake her up. Saturday morning, her temperature was somewhere above 100, and I started to think this might be more than a cold. By Saturday night, she had started coughing so hard that she was throwing up, and her fever had gone up to 102.3. I called the doctor and he had us start home breathing treatments immediately since Alexis has a history of asthma. The treatments helped and the bit of a knot in my stomach began to relax somewhat. Sunday we continued treatments and she was hanging in there, though the medicine kept her awake most of Sunday night since her body hadn’t adjusted to it yet. We had an appointment to see the doctor Monday morning. In the meantime, Branwen continued with her cold symptoms, and I was getting rather coldy, too.
Monday, Joel stayed home from work to go to the doctor with me because both kids seemed pretty sick and I wasn’t feeling good. After talking to us a bit and listening to both girls, the doctor announced that they both had pneumonia. He said it was most likely viral, but he wanted them to take an antibiotic anyway since their lungs were somewhat compromised and open to other infections. We left the office with instructions to continue the breathing treatments for Alexis, begin them for Branwen, and start antibiotics. We were to return in about a week and a half to make sure their lungs were clear, and we were to call if anything else happened to concern us. The pediatrician also told me I should probably go to my doctor since I had many of the same symptoms as the girls.
So things were ok. We knew what to do. We had the medicine, we just needed to use it. We’d done this sort of thing before. No problem. Branwen’s fever went up to 101.8 Monday afternoon, but Alexis had had a fever before, too. It was all to be expected. Of course, then Branwen had a bout of projectile vomiting Monday night… I hoped it wasn’t a reaction to the antibiotic, but I figured I’d have to call the doctor in the morning to see what he thought. Which brings us to Tuesday.
I got up Tuesday morning after another not-so-great night’s sleep. Alexis had woken up at least once an hour from about 1AM on. I went in feeling sleepy, but still sympathetic since I knew the girls were sick. But as I walked into the room I thought I heard an odd noise, and as I was changing Alexis’ diaper, I began to realize with a growing horror where the noise was coming from. My baby, my 5 1/2 month old, wasn’t able to take a normal breath. Every breath she took gurgled, rattled, and bubbled. Her little body was working like she had been running a race, and all she was doing was trying to breathe normally. Of course, being the calm, cool, and collected mother I am, I freaked out completely. I yelled for Joel (who, I am incredibly thankful, had not yet left for work) and had him bring me the cordless phone. In the meantime, I raced through changing and dressing Alexis. She started crying that she wanted to put her shirt on by herself at one point, and as I pulled it over her head I hastily explained that Branwen was very sick and I had to hurry so I could take care of her. Alexis replied, “I’m sick, too!” How do you explain to a 2 yr. old that this isn’t favoritism? I just told her that that was true, but she was getting better and Branwen wasn’t yet. She seemed to kind-of understand that.
I called the doctor, but he didn’t have openings till 11:30. He said to give her a breathing treatment right away and if she got any worse at all we should go straight to the hospital. I then called my mother, burst into tears, and begged her to come visit at least for the day. Being my mother (and these being her only grandchildren), she came and stayed through today (Friday) instead. 🙂 It took her a little bit to pack, then 2 hours to get here, so she got here just as I was leaving to take Branwen to the doctor’s office. We had given Branwen the breathing treatment, and though it didn’t seem to help a whole lot, she also didn’t get worse. Through this whole time, she wasn’t active at all (understandably since her energy was being used in breathing) and was falling asleep fairly often. One of our friends is a physician’s assistant, and when she got wind of what was going on, she called to see if she could help. I tearfully asked her how we could tell the difference between Branwen falling asleep and passing out, and she calmly explained the warning signs (gurgling, which we had already; chest and tummy being sucked in, which I saw occassionally; and gasping for breath, which she wasn’t really doing yet). Thank God for friends who know what they’re talking about. When I got Branwen to the doctor’s, he listened to her and said she was definitely worse than the day before, and was most certainly the sickest baby he’d seen yet that day. He checked her oxygen levels, and the first readings he got (from her toes… the machines they use to measure these things just intrigue me) showed her levels around 85 or 86. For her to be considered ok enough to be out of the hospital, her readings had to be at least 93. He switched the little clip to one of her fingers, and the readings were better… now they were 92, 93… occaisonally 94. He ordered a chest x-ray, another breathing treatment as soon as we got home, and another visit either later that day or early the next morning. He told me that if Branwen went into the hospital, she’d stay there until her oxygen levels stayed up whether that took a day or a week.
It was an exhausting day, mostly of waiting for results and wondering whether I’d be sleeping at home or in the hospital. The x-ray came back just as the doctor expected which he said was a good thing. He was hoping the results wouldn’t show worse pneumonia than what he thought was there. The breathing treatments seemed to at least be keeping her in a holding pattern, so the doctor said that if we kept a close eye on her and gave her treatments every 3 hours or so through the night, we could keep her home. We had to keep her elevated so the fluid wouldn’t settle in her lungs, so we brought her swing, something we rarely use anymore, up into our bedroom. We set our alarms to wake up every 3 hours or so and gave her treatments, most of which she slept through.
The next morning, Joel brought her back to the doctor’s office. By this time, I was feeling absolutely miserable myself and felt a distinct lack of energy, so he and my Mom (who was taking care of Alexis) let me sleep in. Branwen’s oxygen levels had gone up about a point. Based on those readings, the doctor said that, though we weren’t out of the woods yet, he thought she’d be ok as long as we continued the round-the-clock treatments and kept an eye on her. If her fever spiked again, if she started vomiting again, if her breathing seemed to get any worse, he wanted a call immediately even if it was 2 in the morning. We have a very good pediatrician.
Since then, Branwen has steadily improved. We’ve been able to take her off of the nighttime treatments now. Alexis is down to only 2 treatments a day, while Branwen is still at 4. Alexis only coughs now if she gets really active. Branwen still has a rattle in her lungs occassionally, but you only hear it if you’re holding her instead of being able to hear it across the room. Sometimes I can’t even hear it, but I can feel the rattle with my hand on her back. Through this time, she’s gotten a bit more attached to me, too. She even says, “mamamamama,” and though she really has no idea what she’s saying, it’s almost as if she does. She says it whenever she’s upset, and she calms down as soon as she’s in my arms. It seems very sweet right now, though I’m sure it will become more annoying and less endearing once I know she’s well. It’s also a new and amazingly enjoyable thing to watch her play. I see her laugh at a toy, and my chest gets tight knowing that we might have been in the hospital at this very moment with my baby attached to tubes and an oxygen mask.
Oh, I did get to the doctor on Wednesday thanks to Joel making an appointment for me. I don’t have pneumonia, thankfully, but I did manage to get a double ear infection and a sinus infection. Joel has kept himself mostly healthy, though he does have some fairly minor cold symptoms… sinus drainage and an occaisonal cough. We’re hoping that’s the worst he gets.
The Lord is good. We have wonderful friends and family who helped us when we needed it, we have an excellent doctor and home medical equipment that allows us to take care of our baby at home even when she’s very ill, and through it all His strength sustained us.
The memory of that rattling breath will haunt my dreams for quite some time.
I sincerely hope we don’t have another week like this anytime in the near future.