Sophie- our miracle

Hi friends and family, I just wanted to fill you all in on what happened this week. Saturday, Sullivan had strep throat, and we got him to the doctor and on antibiotics. He was feeling much better, and we went to Schlitterbahn in Galvston with my parents on Sunday. Sophie had a blast of a day! Then, Sunday night, she was overly cranky and started running a little fever. Monday morning, her fever was 102, and she was unhappy. I brought her in to the pediatrician (on Labor Day, we have a great pediatric office), and she gave her a thorough workover, including bloodwork, and said she had some kind of virus, but she would be fine. She said to bring her back in a day or two if she got any worse. She was fine after that (they had given her a dose of tylenol), so we went shoe shopping for Sullivan and out to lunch with Aaron. I brought the kids home and put them down for a nap. When Sophie woke up at 4:30, I could tell she was getting really sick. She had 103, and would not put anything in her mouth. I called the after hours, and they told me to get some tylenol suppositories and pedialyte. I did. She was getting really sick, but the doctor said that if we took her to the er with a fever, they would poke and prod her and that we should just wait until the morning for our doctor to see her. She got really bad throughout the night, we were puttin 2 suppositories in at a time, and her fever wouldn't budge. She was miserable, just laying there. About 2, she started to have a bad cough, and sounded like it was hard to breathe when she cried. We just thought she was mad at being sick, and tried not to get her worked up. At 8:30, we called the pediatrician to get an appointment, and the nurse heard her over the phone and said, "When can you be here?" We jumped in the car and drove over.

As we walked in the office, they put us in a room and brought in some breathing supplies. The doctor walked in and said "We can't help her here, she is really sick. She needs to be in the hospital, but I don't feel safe putting her in your car (our insurance doesn't use the hospital that she is attached to), so I am gonna walk you over to the er. " She actually got on the phone and prepared the doctors there while a nurse walked us rather briskly over to the er. You could tell Sophie was getting worse by the minute. When we got there, they gave her a breathing treatment and a shot of steroids. They said almost every case of croup responds well to this, and she should be fine. Five breathing treatments later, with her heart rate of 200, her breathing more than 90 a minute, and a miserable looking baby, they realized she was in bad shape. They did chest xrays, and dug and dug and dug for and iv line (while she just laid there). The guy said they have never not had to papoose a baby, but she just layed there without crying.

Our pediatrician walked in and said, "she needs more help than we can give her. She is way too sick for croup. Are either of you comfortable with flying?"
We looked at each other like what? She said, "We need to air lift her out of here and get her to Temple where they have a PICU that can take care of her."
I started balling. She told me basically that my baby's life depended on me being strong and that I could cry later. So, I put on a strong face, and didn't cry again until the next day. Everything moved rather rapidly from there. I got on a helicopter with her, while Aaron had to go home and get ready to come meet us. They talked of landing the helicopter twice on the way bc she was gravely ill. She kept turning blue- they did two more of the epi breathing treatments in the air. When we got to the hospital, there was a team of doctors and nurses waiting to take care of her. I kept asking, this isn't something she can die from right? Yall WILL help her, right? The nurses kept telling me, "she is really sick honey, but she is in the right hands." They never would tell me "no."

All night that first night was a horrible battle. I don't remember much except for signing papers for her to go under surgery to have a central line put in her- she was too dehyrated and sick, she kept popping ivs out. I also know that we signed papers to have her intubated when they decided she just couldn't fight on her own and need the breathing tube down her throat. But, some miracle happened, and they worked on her without it. The next few days are a blur. We stayed in PICU two nights and a regular pediatric room one. We are now home. It is a miracle that Sophie is here. The gravity of it all has sunk in. She still looks sick- all she does is cry and nurse. She will not smile, and is being so serious. The steroids she is on have weakened her immune system, and she is not supposed to be around anyone for about two weeks while she gets strong. We will be giving her steroids for the next year anytime she gets any cold symptoms so that this does not happen again. She apparently has a small windpipe that can't get any germs in it.

So, thank you all for your prayers. I was not able to contact alot of people, but I KNOW that there were a lot of prayers for her. I will keep you all posted as to her status.