ER/PICU

Well, here I am, in the PICU (Pediatric Intensive Care Unit),after spending over 9 hours in the ER, with the youngest teenager.

She woke me at 5am, coughing, and wheezing.
She's had a cold this last week, but this sounded a bit worse.
I asked her if she was having an asthma attack, and she replied yes.

We discussed her rescue inhalers, but she said no, this was bad enough to whip out the nebulizer.

After 3 rounds on the nebulizer, 2 shots off the inhaler, and 4 prednisone pills, nothing was helping.

To top it all off, her lungs were groaning, out loud, with every breath- which I'd never heard before - EVER!

So, off to the ER we went.
Where the triage nurse promptly whisked us back after her pulseox(ygen) said 85.
Her blood pressure was low, her heart rate high, and even on 7 liters of oxygen, she was still struggling to breath.

They started talking about intubating her.

Thank God, they didn't have to....but they had her on a breathing treatment and a truck load of drugs, and it seemed to be helping - enough to keep the breathing tube away, anyways.

After 9 hours down there in the ER, they finally moved us up to the PICU, for overnight observation - plus, her oxygen level keeps crashing every time they have to take her off for assorted reasons.

Since she's asked me to stay the night with her, the other teenager is home with the toddler.

The way she (teenager) is acting about having to babysit, you'd think I was having a party without her.

How dare I spend the night with her sick sister!! Don't I know life is about her???

I guess I forgot that! Stupid me!

I can still hope that one day she will think about someone other than herself.....sigh.

Ok, am running on empty, so need to get some sleep.
Blessings